How to compile software into a re-installable form?

Question

I am working through my 7th recompile of the same software. There are no pre-built packages available, and it's a long compile time. Is there a way to take what I compile and package it up so that I don't have to continually build it right from source?

EDIT: CentOS 6 for the OS if that matters.

Answer 1

checkinstall, which is based on installwatch, is able to create various packages including .deb (Debian, Ubuntu, ...), .rpm (Red Hat, Fedora, SuSE, ...) and .tgz (Slackware) suitable for your distribution's package manager.

Answer 2

You should have a look at CDE. From its website :

CDE (formerly known as CDEpack) automatically packages up the Code, Data, and Environment required to deploy and run your Linux programs on other machines without any installation or configuration. CDE is the easiest way to completely eliminate dependency hell.

So it will compile your program and include all the dependencies in the resulting package as well. The resulting package should be able to run on any modern x86 Linux distribution, so you won't have to continually build it right from source.