I have a list of Compilation and installation instructions for quite a large number of programs. This might be helpful if you cannot or don't want to use a binary package.
Use with a little care, however. I often modified the default paths to be in accordance with my own preferences (eg. /opt instead of /usr/local, or /usr/local/man instead of /usr/man), especially in older programs. Nowadays I use the default paths if possible.