Usually the only tricky part of compiling from source is tracking down dependencies. The package manager does that for you normally but you’re not using the package manager when compiling from scratch. The actual building (even compiling a kernel) isn’t all that complicated.
If you need the python header files, depending on your distro, you may need to install python3-dev, python3-devel, python3, or some other variation on the name. For a novice, this might not always be obvious and they might not know things like apt-file are helpful for figuring it out.
Usually the only tricky part of compiling from source is tracking down dependencies. The package manager does that for you normally but you’re not using the package manager when compiling from scratch. The actual building (even compiling a kernel) isn’t all that complicated.
Usually developers list dependencies in README anyway
True. It’s the dependencies of dependencies where the tricky part starts.
Dependencies almost always are present in distro repos. What’s tricky?
If you need the python header files, depending on your distro, you may need to install python3-dev, python3-devel, python3, or some other variation on the name. For a novice, this might not always be obvious and they might not know things like
apt-fileare helpful for figuring it out.Huh. Shouldn’t apt install header dependencies too? I’m using system where every package comes with headers, so I don’t install headers separately.
Debian and RedHat based distros typically do not bundle them together. The have separate
-devand-develpackages for headers.