[ale] Basics of Linux lower level than distros

[Narahari 'n' Savitha]

What I mean is

I am on Arch Linux and say I want to make my Creative Live Webcam work and
it requires drivers to be compiled and some one on the web has the source
code for the drivers or compiled libraries/modules for the Webcam.

Since Arch does not have a package or for that matter Ubuntu does not have
a .deb file, how do I go about getting it installed on my box ?  What is
the process to get

a. source tar ball
b. compile it to libs
c. make a pkg a .deb or whatever Arch offers (if needed)
d. install drivers
e. kernel update needed or not etc.,

What I explained could be low level but I am sure Arch or Debian put
together nice installers, but if there are no installers how can I put
latest software etc.,

Another one is what does a MBR help you with and how does GRUB or syslinux
really help or more imp like
"I have Linux on another partition and windows on another".  Do I need to
really re-install Linux or patch it up well so both OS's breathe again ?

These kind of fundamental questions is what I was planning to understand.

-Narahari

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:54 PM, Beddingfield, Allen <allen at ua.edu> wrote:

>  I think with the member list here, we can probably manage to cover
> whatever you are interested in. Can you be more specific on what areas you
> have interest in?
> Allen B.
>
>
>  *From*: Narahari 'n' Savitha [mailto:savithari at gmail.com]
> *Sent*: Thursday, February 07, 2013 08:47 PM
> *To*: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
> *Subject*: [ale] Basics of Linux lower level than distros
>
>
> Friends:
> Is there a talk that can be done on Linux at a base level like how to weed
> beyond pkg mgrs etc.,
>
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