./configure

[alex <radsky@ncia.net>]

I'm have a problem with ./configure in that I sometimes
get a response like this:
bash:  ./configure:  No such file or directory

Here's my procedure prior to ./configure

1.  Download the tar package to  /home/downloads
2.  cd /home/downloads
3.  tar -vzxf tarpackage
4.  ls (to make sure the untarred package is in /home/downloads)
5.  cd package
6.  ./configure

With some downloaded tar packages, the procdure works fine but
with some I get the response that there's no such file or
directory.

What am I missing or doing wrong?  I've read instructions that
say to download to a suitable directory? Is /home/downloads a
'suitable directory'?