Compiling only certain packages
 

I downloaded the kde 2.2 source code, and I just want to compile the kdebase package. Can anybody help me out with how to do that?

You might want to see about getting it in RPM format. It would be much easier to install.
If you can't do that, I would say look for README and INSTALL files once you unpack the distribution. Hopefully you would just need to run "configure" then do "make" and "make install". But, as I said, check the INSTALL file to make sure.