How do you upgrade the source of a program in Linux? For example, I have installed the source for IPtables on my linux system, but now I want to upgrade to the latest version, what are the way to do this? I know that with distro's like RedHat you can just install the RPM, however, I would like to be able to upgrade by using the source.

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Usually you have to do the following:
1. Download the newest source code to some directory on your computer
2. Using the command prompt, cd into the directory where you put the source code
3. run "make" (or maybe "make all")
4. run "make install"

and voila! Nice and easy...

Note that this is USUALLY the way its done. Always read the "README" file in the main directory where you put the source before compiling, just in case they have any special instructions.

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actually, preceding make, you typically:
ls - see whats there
less README
and/or
less INSTALL

followed by:

./Configure
or
./configure

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You can create your own packages with programs like checkinstall. Then your RPM, TGZ, DEB etc package tool (pkgtool, kpackage etc) can install it for you making it easy to keep track of.

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