I deployed one project by creating a completely separate deployment area, /opt/projectname, which contains a separate tree, /opt/projectname/sw, where I manuall

I deployed one project by creating a completely separate deployment area, /opt/projectname, which contains a separate tree, /opt/projectname/sw, where I manually compiled all the dependencies: ./configure --prefix=/opt/projectname/sw. I installed ruby and gems in there, as well as the specific version of Apache I wanted to use. On the downside, it means that managing upgrades comes problematic, as I have only isolated the bin/lib/etc/share mess into a separate tree, not eliminated it. To make life easier, though, I'd like to use an alternative source-based package manager. I'm not sure how to do this, but I'd like to run the './configure --prefix=/usr && make && make install' invocation in an environment which tracks the files copied by the install process, and knows which files in the system my packages affected. At this point, it would (ideally) update the .deb database on the system. It could (alternatively) keep track of these files in its own database. Maybe a chroot trick could help implement this.