So, you wanna compile a program...
Well, demarc tells you how:
http://www.demarc.org/documentation/
This little puppy had an area on building the binaries, basically that is speak for compiling the source to get the binaries...
In all, mos tof the software you can download will have some sort of doc in the tar file, usually a README and an INSTALL doc right in the dir it creates.
Read through those, and most s/w will have a Configure script that they'll have you run, and this will setup the Makefile for your particular system. The Makefile is what the make utility uses to direct itself through compiling the files for the program. The Makefile defines in what order and whether or not source files are compiled and with which compiler switches.
It is actually MUCH easier than it sounds, you download the tar, untar it, read the docs, run the configure script (if there is one), and then run (usually in this order, read the doc):
make
make test
make install
And that should do you right...
Later,
loadc