For Debian the best thing to do is to do "apt-get install postal", if you don't want to use the version supplied with your version of Debian you can build a Debian package in the usual manner. Change to the directory containing the unpacked source and use the command: dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -tc -us That will create a .deb in the parent directory. For Red Hat etc there is a portslave.spec file to allow for building with the "rpm -b" command. For Solaris use the command "make -C sun" to build a package in /var/spool/pkg (make sure you have write access to that directory). For other Unix setup "./configure ; make install" should do an install.