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Hands-on Lab·LPIC-2

Building from source, and what it leaves behind

Objective 206.1 is building and installing programs from source. This guide takes GNU hello from a tarball to a running binary on a server that had no compiler, then asks the two questions the objective is really about: what does the package manager know about what you just installed, and can you put the machine back?

201: System Maintenance Guide 21 of 29 Intermediate

One server, chosen because it had no compiler on it. Every result on this page is from that machine, including the two that did not go to plan.
Server NameIP AddressOSRolesCPURAMHDD
LPIC2-A01192.168.0.78Ubuntu 26.04 LTSPrimary service host - BIND, Apache, Samba, Postfix. Topic 204 RAID runs on loop devices; this machine has no spare disk2 Core4 GB50 GB

This guide includes

Use this when the version you need is newer than the repository's, or when a vendor ships nothing but a tarball. This matters because a compiled install is invisible to the package manager - nothing will upgrade it, nothing will patch it, and nothing will tell you it is there in two years.

Before you start

  1. A server with no toolchain

  2. Look inside the tarball before extracting it

  3. configure decides where it will live

  4. make, then make install

  5. The package manager has never heard of it

  6. Uninstall, and the cleanup that did not clean up

  7. The purge that did not remove the compiler

  8. Why autoremove left them

  9. Removing make would install more than it removes

  10. Taking the compiler off, and what has to stay

Official sources