gsl libraries, Debian

[Brian Gough]

Slaven Peles writes:
 > In my experience for a Debian users it's always easier to backport from sid 
 > than to compile from the original sources. Besides, it's much safer too, as 
 > you are always able to remove the package easily, and no extra system 
 > configuration is required. 

For a GNU package just do

  ./configure --prefix=/opt/gsl-1.3  # or whatever version
  make
  ...
 
and to uninstall

  rm -r /opt/gsl-1.3