Gconfigure

Gconfigure is a great shell-script that makes building software from sources much easier. Usually, building a tarball requires executing multiple commands, including cd mypackage, less INSTALL, less README, ./configure --help, ./configure --prefix=/usr -sysconfdir=/etc/gnome --some-other-option, make and su -c "make install". But with gconfigure, you can simply right-click on the tarball and choose build. The program will then prompt you with some dialogs allowing you to set the necessary options and then install the software for you. Moreover, gconfigure can also add the installed package to your package management system.

One of the best features of gconfigure is that it makes installing a package from source almost as easy as installing it from rpm/deb/tgz, without requiring any additional commands. However, to use gconfigure, you will need the following requirements: zenity, libgnomesu, Checkinstall, bash, gzip, bzip2, sed, grep and others.

The latest version of gconfigure includes lots of bugfixes, including the ability to accept tgz as well as tar.gz, fixes for some bugs with file saving preferences, and no more errors about a missing readme.gconfigure. Additionally, it now accepts "gconfigure file" as well as "gconfigure/home/user/file" and can properly handle non-existent configure and autogen scripts. Moreover, gconfigure has lots of new features, such as the ability to ignore OPTIONS instead of OPTION=VALUE, no hard dependencies on libgnomesu anymore, and the ability to have conf files in ~/.gconfigure.conf and /etc/gconfigure.conf, with ~/ overruling /etc/.

Overall, gconfigure is a great tool for anyone who likes to build software from sources. Its ease of use and numerous features are sure to make your experience smoother and more enjoyable.