How-To: Compile Programs From Source in Linux

“While Ubuntu and Debian have “backports” repositories that have
fairly new packages in them, many other distros do not have such a
resource. For large projects with large community support, the
developer may offer nightly builds, but this is not the case for
most projects. The only reliable way to get bleeding-edge software
(stability issues aside) is to either find a repository that has it
or download the source code from the developer and build it
yourself.

“If you want to be a programmer at some point, you are going to
need to know how to compile applications, since that is really the
only way to develop your own projects and effectively contribute
your own code to open source projects that other people have
started.

“It is also wise to compile security-oriented software (like
encryption tools) yourself. Although binaries are generally
trustworthy if they came from an official repository or developer
website, you can never really be 100% sure of what you’re getting
unless you build it yourself. (preferably after a code audit, if
you have sufficient skill to do so)”

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