how to built from source?neede help

[wrapster]

Hi all,

i would like to know how to build apps from source code....
The reason am asking is, i downoaded a tarball that had the source code and all the other dependencies, but i had to start from the "make" as given in the readme file...

How ever when i followed up and tried to run ./configure and try to get a make file....
I got and error saying "cannot find gcc"...
However i know gcc is built in ,because ive used it...
path :/usr/sfw/bin/gcc

I however dont know how to use this with the ./configure?
Do i need to pass it as a parameter?
I would appreciate some help on this issues..
Also any material on the web for building from souce that you could point me to,would also be veryhelpfull

Thanks

[Dapper Dan]

In every app I've ever compiled, you run configure before make. The rule of thumb is:

./configure
make
make install

There are of course variations on this.