[conspire] Breezy Badger/configure something

[Rick Moen]

Oops, I just remembered the Ubuntu default of no default direct login to
the root account, plus spotted something in your transcript:

   $ sudo ./configure --prefix$HOME/units174
   configure: error: --prefix/home/jla/units174: invalid option; use --help to show usage

Um, although it's good that you're getting used to using sudo, it would
seem that you're unnecessarily wielding root-user authority for the
above (attempted) step:  You would seem to be attempting to direct
the "make install" step to use /home/jla/units174/ as its target 
directory, which user "jla" can do perfectly fine without needing to 
borrow root's superior powers of... persuasion.

So, what I'm saying is that, aside from the missing "=", you were on the
right track, but you honestly didn't system-wide authority just to write
some stuff within your _own_ home directory.  ;->


On the other hand, I managed to forget about the no-direct-access-to-root 
Ubuntu default when I said:

> $ su -
> # ln -s /usr/bin/gcc /usr/local/bin/cc
> # exit

Unless you've gone out of your way to _enable_ direct access to the
root-user account (which you almost certainly have _not_ done), "su -"
isn't going to get you anywhere.  You should -- and I was pretty dumb
for forgetting this -- use sudo, instead:

  $ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gcc /usr/local/bin/cc
  $

And I'm glad you stressed that you're doing this just as a "beginner's
exercise" (and are building this thing into a scratch directory within
your home dir):  While it's a Very Good Thing to know how to compile
software, you should try hard to stick to the package system for any
software intended to be part of the _system_, root-owned, etc. -- making
it known to the package system for future updating, etc.