[conspire] Thank you

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ross Bernheim (rossbernheim at speakeasy.net):

> I am basically a linux desktop user. I do however always look for the 
> deb package first!

Look for, in order:

1.  Maintained package from within your distro.
2.  Package in a third-party repo.
3.  Source tarball with a build tree for your distro (debian/rules
    subtree for Debian/Ubuntu/etc., spec file for rpm-based distros).
4.  Source tarball without distro build instructions.


> Repsnapper is an exception. As noted on the software's page, there are no
> packages for any distros and you need to compile.

Indeed.  I wanted to make sure I stressed the need to look for preferred
formats, and explain what order of preference applies and why, in order
to address the _general_ case -- because this keeps coming up.

FWIW, you should _not_ automatically trust to the upstream developer's
page if it claims no third-party package repository (for your distro)
exists.  Such claims are often outdated.  Search first before believing.