If you tend to build your own files a lot, and your OS doesn't take care
of things for you (e.g. Gentoo and FreeBSD), look into XStow or Stow
(check on Freshmeat.net).  These, with a little help from you, keep your
locally compiled packages in a neat hierarchy in /usr/local/stow, and
symlink the relevant files back into the /usr/local hierarchy.  It allows
you to easily uninstall as well.

A drawback is that you then have to remember to re-stow Ruby whenever you
add a new module, but I think it is worth it to have the ability to track
everything.

You won't find a lot of 'uninstall' targets for Make, I'm afraid.  It's
generally risky to do, and probably not the job for the programmer of the
application.  That's just the way Unix tends to be.

--Gabriel

On Thu, 13 Mar 2003 03:26:08 +0900, Colin Coates wrote:

> I had previously downloaded ruby-1.6.8.tar.gz to my GNU/Linux machine, and
> done the usual "./configure", "make", "make install" dance. Everything
> worked fine and I was the happy owner of a shiny and stable Ruby
> installation.
> 
> Now I am getting (too?) adventurous already, and decide to fetch and build
> Ruby from CVS.