Many packages can be compiled and installed like this:
configure
make
make install
This may require administration privileges to install the new package into protected system directories.
To change the prefix for the installation and put the files somewhere else locally, you can do this:
configure --prefix=/local/directory
make
make install
Replace /local/directory for the desired installation path.
Installing a source package using cmake is slightly different than the example above. The entire process would look like this:
tar -zxvf <program>-<version>.tar.gz
cd <program>-<version>
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
make test
make install
Do this if you need to change the default installation prefix with cmake:
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:/local/directory
make
make install