While many distributions have quite advanced package managers, there will come a point when compiling from source is a must. But, how then do you manage it so that you can keep track of where the [Mm]akefile has put all the compiled applications, etc?
Enter: http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/stow.html (stow). This program will keep track of all your compiled binaries by linking all binaries/libs/etc in /usr/local/.
For a more general overview, see /CompileFromSource as to why stow is considered useful.
To set up Stow, all you have to do is:
mkdir /usr/local/stow
Then when compiling [continued…]