[EN] Advice Please: Compile from sources or RPM via Alien

[bad_aptitude]

There is what looks like a nice piece of image comparison software called IMGSEEK which has not been maintained recently. There may be an old package through DEB-PORTS. There are 2 - 3 year old sources files available trough GIT and there is an RPM from 2011.
Not wishing to mess up my installation, would I be better off using alienware on the RPM or compiling from an old GIT source file? Or should I just forget it?

Thanks for any advice.

[GoinEasy9]

I would choose compiling before using "alien", especially with older rpm's.  Even though the code is old, you really can't hurt anything by trying to compile it.

[DeepDayze]

I would choose compiling before using "alien", especially with older rpm's.  Even though the code is old, you really can't hurt anything by trying to compile it.

Try to build it as user sounds like a better idea and make sure you have the needed -dev packages. Watch the errors from the "./configure && make" dance as in most cases ./configure will complain about missing headers, libs etc and the name of the missing lib will usually tell you what -dev package is needed.

For example if ./configure gives error "Error: library Foo not found" you could try installing foo-dev package. Sometimes you might not be able to compile such old software as it might depend on rather old versions of libs or headers.

[bad_aptitude]

Thanks GoinEasy9 and DeepDayze.
I'll give compilng from sources a try.