apt-get source

[David Baron <d_baron@012.net.il>]

Having failed to get apt-build to work, I tried this. I can easily compile and 
install stuff that the kde packages will not due to dependency problems 
(around qt3 and kde) and I get the Debian version (versions posted on 
kde-apps, sourceforge had unrelated compilation problems!).

A few kudos here:

1. The sources are expanded into the home/user's directory. /usr/src might be 
a better choice but this is OK, however

2. The permissions are set to a strange mix of root (apt-get must be run as 
root) and some default user, in my case "knoppix" (forgive me Debian, I have 
sinned). So before proceding, a chown -R to me:me :-)

3. If I simply compile and install, the thing goes to /usr/bin. This is very 
undesirable since this install is not "registered" in apt. The configure 
prefix must be set to /usr/local or /opt or anything other than /usr.

Now, a recent post taked about dpkg-repack'ing such an installation. Would 
this make a deb out of this installation that would work canonically? (In 
this case, I would leave the prefix to its /usr default.)