installing programs using prefix

[scrarfussi]

ive been reading that if i wanna install a program without root password i can use a prefix which user has access to can someone please explain this to me as i cant quite fully understand how to do it thank you

[daark.child]

During the configure process, you enter the "--prefix=/some/path" flag e.g. to install the package to /home/user/mypackages, you would do something like

$./configure --prefix=/home/user/mypackages
$make
$make install

Some packages like Firefox, Eclipse, RealPlayer etc can be installed in your home directory without any compiling because they are already compiled and include executable files to run the program.

RPMs, DEBs and other binary packages cannot be installed in your home directory because the path to which they can be installed is fixed and only writable by root.