Yes
qtrans, qdvdauthor, ffDiaporama:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/tkb/

I used to do this weekly when I ran a FreeBSD desktop and used ports. Also, ran Gentoo for several years and you compile everything during the install and every update. Would occasionally have breakages on Gentoo when updating but actually never had a compile failure on FreeBSD when building ports. I never compile anymore, not because I can't but because it is a PITA and I don't like waiting. Plus there is little benefit for me to compile anything: speed differences are negligible and the default build options for most packages on any platform I have used are fine for me.

Yes, but just recompiles from an Ubuntu ppa. Snapraid and Makemkv. Easiest way to get them on Debian and as a proper file managed by apt. I think at one point I recompiled Squid as well for ssl support on Ubuntu. No manual compilations from a tar.gz file though. Generally avoid compilation like the plague if I can.

This is a thing I want to learn.

I've done one attempt - but not successfuly. That was to try compile the newest version of GNumeric on a Linux Lite installation. However it stopped at "No package 'gtk+-3.0' found" -error, and I haven't being able to get past that point yet.

So, the problem with compiling (./configure, make make install) a package on its own is that you have to figure out all dependencies manually. This could spiral out of control exponentially: package A requires dependency B, which also requires dependencies c,d,e, etc. It can certainly be done but you have to be patient and careful you don't overwrite something your distro uses that's older than what you are compiling and installing.

Also, there is no way to update the things you are installing without re-compiling the new versions. You will have to look manually to see if any security updates or code fix updates are available.

Not trying to discourage you, you just need to be aware of the potential pitfalls.

While sevendogsbsd makes a good point above, and not saying he's wrong in what he says... but while there may not be development packages available for all of the required dependencies for your particular distribution (depends on your distribution and the software you're trying to compile); if you're using a mainstream distribution like Ubuntu, Fedora, etc, then it's likely that it will have at least reasonably large software repositories that can provide at least most of the required dependencies, and therefore you can likely install those dependencies along with the respective "development packages" for those required dependencies (other than maybe some really non-standard libraries or similar) - which would likely have "devel" or maybe "dev" (depending on your particular distribution) appended to the end of the package name in relation to the respective "development packages".

If your distribution is a mainstream distribution, you can use your distibution's package manager to install the relevant packages along with their respective "development packages". This would be the best approach to take because it should ensure that you don't overwrite existing dependencies used by already installed software - provided you are careful in *not* going crazy enabling non-default software repositories. So be very careful when adding any software repositories to your package manager's "repolist" - and try to stick to default repositories wherever possible.

1 members found this post helpful.

Good point, I had forgotten about the dev packages that can be installed. Thanks for the reminder/info jsbjsb001.

@Grobe
Those "not found" messages in configure always refer to header files. The script doesn't actually check for the libraries themselves because they are only required at run time. You are aware, I hope, that most distros don't package the headers with the library but have a separate -dev or -devel package for them.

Almost daily, if my own software counts, even if it's not released, it's still all licensed with GPL or others if I don't want to be too strict.

Other software projects, as well. Technically, I'm also a KDE developer, but I haven't written anything for that in a long long long time and only for one piece of software and I'm completely out of the loop with KDE as a framework in general, hahaha.
Still, I have the tag. :P

Yes by following the included instructions in the "Read Me" file with a few applications I have installed .

My third distro was GenToo. But, I've stuck with SUSE, then OpenSUSE for 12 years, and haven't had to compile source since. Come close to thinking I would have to make a mod somewhere to get something to work, but I've not had to compile source code.