Why Not To Compile

Mandriva is a RPM based distro and therefore only RPM's should be used on the system. Installing packages from source can have undesired results on a RPM based distro.

A Mandriva RPM is designed to install packages in certain places, with certain file names. These locations will ALWAYS differ when installed by source. Also some of the packages file names can differ as well. These two differences can cause havoc with your system.

Why would it cause havoc? Let's say you have already installed package foo.rpm previously and now you install a newer version of the app by source. You now have two separate installations of the same app on the system, and both are now located in different places. Most things installed from source end up in /usr/local/ and this IS NOT where a Mandriva RPM installs to.

Ok, that not enough to convince you to avoid installing apps from source? How about this... say you did install the app 'foo' from source and now want to install a Mandriva RPM that has as a dependency of 'foo'. Since you had installed 'foo' from source, the Mandriva RPM will not see it because it wasn't installed where the Mandriva RPM would have put it. This situation would cause Mandriva to install the foo.rpm which again gives you two separate versions installed on the same system.

As you can see, mixing source and RPM's on a RPM based distro is not really wise. There will be times that you want an app installed that Mandriva does not have. In these cases it's best to make an RPM of the app and install that instead. Creating RPM's can be rather difficult depending on the app and it's requirements, but I would suggest trying it, or finding someone who may be willing to try and create a RPM for you.

The Mandriva RPM howto is located here: RPM How-To