I'm a relatively newbie linux user, so I'm just wondering about this: I've installed several tar.gz programs successfully by untarring the tar.gz file into a directory, then using ./configure, make, make install, (and make clean... about this, is it neccessary? and what exactly does it clean out?);
Then after compiling and installing the program, I sent the directory of untarred files to the trash... But for some reason when I try to empty the trash, or delete the files, it says access is denied... is this because they're being used or something, and can i delete them, or am I supposed to leave the untarred folder there?
Thanks- btw, i dun think it should matter but i'm running mandrake 9.1

Well, you should keep the source directories in case you want to uninstall that program later on.

But as for "permission denied", some of the files in it must be owned by root.

Try (as root):

chown -R [user]:users /path/to/source

replacing [user] with whatever your user is.

I tried changing the ownership with the commands you gave, and it works now, i can delete the files... I suppose its because I did the ./configure, make etc under the Konsole in super user mode... should I not do this? I know its not very smart to log in as root with graphical interface, but shouldn't i use root for installing all programs to avoid problems with not being able to modify certain directories/files?

It's just a safety thing. For a lot of home users/small business people, it's pointless, but if you're running a large network, you don't want people in there adding and deleting things willy-nilly. Therefore, if you want to install files, you want to be root, and by the same token, to remove them, you want to be root as well.