If I am installing stuff from source on a system that is otherwise managed using packages, what's the cleanest way of doing so?.How can I install more than one version of a library without breaking my normal system?.How can I tell what libraries I have installed, and what versions?.What are the actual differences between a shared and a statically linked library? Why can't I just statically link everything (RAM and disk space are cheap these days) and hence avoid weird library version conflicts?.configure & make finds them, what actually happens when they are linked against How shared libraries work under OS X / Linux - where they live on the filesystem, how.How do I figure out what arguments to pass to.This almost always relates to other library dependencies in some way. While I install software from packages (MacPorts / apt-get) where-ever possible, I often find myself needing to compile packages from source./configure & make & sudo make install is usually enough, but sometimes it doesn't work - and when it doesn't, I frequently get stuck.
