Paco

Paco is a nice tool when you cannot depend software install on yum, aptitude, etc. It records what a 'make install' creates (files, dirs, sym links...). You can use it like

$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo paco -D make install

If you want to uninstall it, you can delete all the files with a single command. You can use gui (called gpaco) as well if you like it. It doesn't see application dependencies (but Windows installer doesn't see it as well, does it?). I use this when I source bould a software. A friend of mine told me that he didn't need this because he installs everything in /usr/local/ but started feeling like using it after I told him that we don't install everything in /usr/local/, e.g. device drivers. Some applications create preference file/dir(s) in the home directory. You'll have no chance of making a garvage when you uninstall an application using this utility. Internally it uses LD_PRELOAD and hooks system calls.

By the way I don't do a lot of CG work recently. That's because I don't write technical stuffs a lot.