Ok, lets say i download a .tar.gz2 package, i open it up in the root folder and i take the folder and put it on my desktop, so i unpack the gz2 file... i open up the folder and open the terminal in the folder that i extracted to on my desktop. I run ./configure, then make, then make install. My question is, if i delete that folder where i did ./configure, make, and make install, is that program installed somewhere else on my computer and i wont have to have that folder on my desktop? i hope this makes sense, thanks for the help

When you compile a program from source, the program is installed elsewhere, usually in /usr/local (Hence why you need to be root to install them). This means that you can safely delete the folder with the source code in it.

What I would suggest is that you delete the extracted folder, but keep the source tarball. Perhaps if you create a directory /home/gbdavidx/src, or use /usr/src for this. Then if you want to uninstall the program, you can re-extract the source, and run "make uninstall".

I hope this helps
--Ian

ok thanks, that helps a bunch