Compiling open source projects

I have been trying to compile open source projects since past few months with no success. I just don't know how to go about the entire thing. Readings over the internet have not helped much.

Some come with ./Configure and a Makefile while others with only a Makefile. How to use them to generate executables (or they have some other purpose ).

My machine currently has: Windows XP, Mingw Compiler for C/C++, Cygwin

Do I need any other software?

Thanks!

Edit:

Thanks for the response. Currently I am trying to compile "Null Httpd". It comes only with a makefile.

In my command line prompt I type

/directoryContainingMakeFile/m开发者_开发知识库ingw32-make Makefile

I get

"Nothing to be done for 'Makefile'"

:(? Am I doing it the right way?

./configure is the first thing to run, if it exists -- it checks if your system has the requirements for the project, and also allows you to set project specific settings or simply set the default values.

Next, the command make (though some projects require automake, or cmake, which are similar but more powerful utilities) takes those configurations and builds from the source code into the executable. Make isn't a compiler in itself though -- its simply used to specify how to build the project. Most projects in C use gcc, probably with many standard libraries to be linked in, in which case this should run on top of cygwin perfectly well. If it has other dependencies however, you are on your own for the most part (this gets complicated very quickly -- if this happens, its usually a less time-consuming effort to work in the OS the source was made to compile on).

After this, you should find the binaries you require in the same directory :)