zlacker

>>mroche+(OP)
I feel like such a greybeard now... I remember when source code was the only way to get software. A pre-built binary? Luxury!

>>_white+p2
You mean that 11 month period between September 1991 when Linux was first released and August 1992 when the SLS distro was released?

>>IshKeb+ra
No. Most open-source packages that weren't universal enough to warrant a package often just gave you a c program with the Autotools scripts to build it.

These scripts may or may not have worked for you. The BSD user ports collection was at least curated so that these scripts all worked.