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* Autoconf builds can (in theory always, in practice usually) be done out of tree, like cmake; when it works, I would suggest it that way: mkdir build; cd build
by giomasce 5y ago
* Autoconf builds can (in theory always, in practice usually) be done out of tree, like cmake; when it works, I would suggest it that way: mkdir build; cd build; ../configure; make.
* When autoconf files are ancient and do not work, running autoreconf (this time in the source directory) can help.
* I don't like installing stuff in system-wide directories either. Ideally system-wide directories should be touched only by your package manager, so that stale files don't stay there forever. But sometimes files in the object tree are not ready to be used, you really have to install them somewhere. There are two possible ways (with autoconf, at least): either use ../configure --prefix=/install/dir or make install DESTDIR=/destination/dir. They do not do the same exact thing, so in particular with DESTDIR you might still need some tweaking before everything works. But it's a good tool to have in your belt.