Compiling and,installing from source: What next?
 

So I unpack the tar file
run
./confgure
make
make install

The program is working Ok

Two questions:

Can I now delete the source directory where I did the compile?

According to the LFS book 'Most programs and librarues are by default, compiled with debugging symbols included'

Is this an issue? Will my program files be much larger than they need be? Should they be stripped?

Thanks

Once 'make install' has been run, anything the program needs is moved from the source directory to /usr/local/, or somewhere simliar. You can now delete the source directory. You may however want to keep it as a 'make uninstall' can remove the program [Some developers don't add 'uninstall' to their Makefile, so it doesn't always work]

Programs an libraries are built with debugging symbols, its probably possible to set an environmental variable to stop it. If disk space is an issue, by all means run 'strip'. [Backup before running strip, just in case it runs off with some vital part of the program!]

Presumably the strip comes between the make and the make install?

Thanks macskeeball