Currently I am running Debian which I like very much. The only problems I have occur when I try to install something not in the apt repositories (kiso, dvd factory). Compiling from source can be a real pain and even worse, very time consuming. Therefor I wonder which distro provides the easiest way of installing software not in their standard apt/yum/portage repositories? (I am open to BSD if that provides a significant better solution). Your comments and tips would be greatly appreciated!

Personally I chose Slackware, and one major point was indeed that you can easily create your own packages. Arch also scores very well there, it's probably even easier.

Fedora 5 and CentOS 4.4 are also surprisingly easy to compile software on. I had a lot of problems with Mandriva (which is the main reason I quit using it), but I have to agree that Slackware is probably the easiest.

I don't think there is a best distro for compiling software. You just need to get familiar with your distro and its package management system (helps resolve dependencies) as well as get familiar with troubleshooting problems when compiling software. I used to have issues compiling software on Mandriva, but once I figured out how they break down their binary packages, I found it easy to resolve any missing dependencies or compilation errors.

Hi

If you feel you are up to Compiling everything and want a bit of a challenge I would suggest Gentoo...www.gentoo.org, a very "customizable" distribution.

I used to use Gentoo. The "compiling from source" is very controlled in that there is a Portage system which brings in all dependencies, and compiling stuff by hand may introduce a few problems.

That said, for the "final" touches, stuff not available through portage, then Gentoo does have everything in place for installing from source.

Have to say that on Fedora I've had almost the most difficult time compiling software from source. Most distributions, including Ubuntu and Fedora, that use a binary packaging system, need some work to be done before compiling software becomes an easy task. On Ubuntu this means installing quite a few packages first (compilers etc.), then wondering what's wrong when every compilation ends in an error etc..if you're going to do a lot of compiling, I suggest you take a look at the distributions that do have somekind of system for compiling stuff from source (and to binary packages, like Arch for example) since that's a pretty good sign about the distribution being able to compile stuff easily. Ubuntu is probably not meant to be used for compiling everything, it's more like binary-aimed distribution, but as it was said, if you're ready to do some ground work first, every distribution is able to compile software from source.

I've tried quite many distributions and compiled (or at least tried to) programs from source code on them all, and by far only two have stood out for making the process more than easy: Arch Linux and Zenwalk (which is Slackware based, so this leads me to believe Slackware handles this well too). With others I had at least minor problems that caused a lot of waste of time before I was able to compile stuff, and I even had to give up with one distribution after several days of tweaking after which I was still unable to compile a single simple IRC client from source - even with the aid of others.

So, if you ask me, I'd point out Zenwalk and Arch as the two distributions I'd pick up. They're not too big in size (only one install disc, quick installation, highly configurable) and both work very nicely. On Zenwalk I've had no problems compiling anything, it "just worked" from the first try (surely there are programs that do require some work before they compile, but I just have not met them yet)

From that point of view, Zenwalk and Slackware are identical.

I know Gentoo very well. (I used it befor Debian). Unforunatly installing anything from source not in the portage tree requires the writing of an ebuild which I find rather complicated.