I have a most annoying question about building from sources. I've searched for an answer for a long while and nowhere can I find one... I've compiled software from sources before and this just baffled me.

So I am trying to install python 2.7.2 from sources. I can do a successful ./configure, also make seems to run fine. But when I do sudo make install, I get a variety of errors...

First, sudo make install gives me this:

make: stat: GNUmakefile: Permission denied
make: stat: makefile: Permission denied
make: stat: Makefile: Permission denied
make: stat: install: Permission denied
make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop.

So I did chmod +rx Makefile*. To no avail.

Then, sudo ls . says

ls: cannot access .: Permission denied

Then ls -d . says the permissions are drwxr-x---

Then, as a desperate measure, chmod +rx .. That gave me:

make: stat: Modules/config.c.in: Permission denied
make: *** No rule to make target `Modules/config.c.in', needed by `Makefile'. Stop.

So some progress... What is happening here? It looks like some sort of permission problem. I presumed that sudo would be the solution but clearly there is something else going on here... I tried sudo -s but I get those permission problems all over again...

I am using Ubuntu 10.04LTS.