This is just a brief note that I hope will help others compile bitcoind on their debian-like linux system. The main sticking point is figuring out what dependencies are needed. So follow these simple steps below, and you can be up and running in no time.

Note that I have done this on Ubuntu 10.04, i386.

1. run to install all the required dependencies. (note that the 4.8 version may differ depending on the age of your distribution)
2. get the source code of bitcoin, either through an svn checkout, or by downloading one of the release tar.gz's
3. cd to the directory where the source code is located, and run 4. watch the compilation progress scroll by.
5. the compiled binary 'bitcoind' will be created in your current directory - enjoy!

Note: currently the official binary uses libdb 4.7, so if you want to be consistent with that, use libdb4.7++-dev instead of the 4.8 version. if you need to go back to 4.7 after running with 4.8, you need to delete .bitcoin/database/* files, because these logfiles are not backward compatible between 4.8 and 4.7.

Any comments/thoughts/suggestions are welcome. :)

FYI, there's a package in preparation at http://bugs.debian.org/578157.

Feel free to contribute there!