Rolling Your Own .deb Package, Getting Secure VPN Tunneling on Ubuntu
As you may or may not know, Ubuntu doesn’t include a build environment by default. What this means is that in order to compile program from source, you’ll need to get the build environment on your own. This is simple enough though, as outlined below:
sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall
This will install 2 things, the build environment (build-essential) and a program that will allow you to install your compiled code as a .deb package (checkinstall). Installing your code as a deb means that you can easily remove it on your own using apt instead of hunting down files and removing them by hand. Instead you just issue apt-get remove PACKAGE as root and it’s gone.
I learned this while getting a VPN tunnel through Torrent Freedom working. In order to use their service, you have to be running a Beta build of OpenVPN. Since the version in the Ubuntu repository is NOT the Beta, it won’t work with that version. So, you have to roll your own, but it’s easier than you might think.