@swanson, the build directory was in my Downloads/ directory, whose permissions are rwxr-xr-x, in a xfce4-terminal-1.1.2/, whose permissions are the same.

No, I did not use --prefix=/usr, which I did not find in the github readme.

So, it's good now, but so I know for next time, why don't run ./configure as root?  And, where are the instructions to use --prefix=/usr?  And, where those permissions sufficient?

@swanson, thanks for confirming.

@stopAI

You can get all dependencies of xfce4-terminal with simple command:

apt build-dep xfce4-terminal

Thanks for this!  After this, I was able to build xfce4-terminal (I think).

NEVER run

 ./configure

as root.

Just run it as regular user.

Could you explain this?  When I run as user, I get:

./configure: line 1941: config.log: Permission denied
./configure: line 1951: config.log: Permission denied

But when run as root (as in the github readme), it completes.

So, after this, I ran make and make install.  Apart from several errors about things being deprecated, it appeared to complete successfully.  But I can't seem to find/run this new version.

In the build directory, there is a terminal/ directory, in which there is a xfce4-terminal executable file, which is three times the size of the old one.  But when I run this file, I get the old version 1.0.4 terminal.

whereis xfce4-terminal gives two results:  /usr/bin/ and /usr/local/bin/.  The former appears to be the old executable (dated 2022-05-24), and the latter appears to be the same as in the build/terminal/ directory (dated today, 2024-02-29) and almost three times the size of the former.  But running any of them just gives the old 1.0.4 terminal.

So, not sure where to go from here.

@boughtonp, backporting may be helpful for other users as well, but not convinced that it should be left in the hands of a beginner. 

Hi.  The ones that are specifically of interest to me:  the ability to modify the shortcuts for the terminal screen buffer, namely Scroll Line Up, Scroll Line Down, Scroll Page Up, Scroll Page Down, Top of Buffer, Bottom of Buffer, which are presently set to: Shift+Ctrl+Up, Shift+Ctrl+Down, Shift+PgUP, Shift+PgDn, Shift+Home, Shift+End; and which I wish to set to Alt+Up, Alt+Down, Alt+PgUp, Alt+PgDn, Alt+Home, Alt+End.

In xfce4-terminal 1.1.2, the first four of those are now editable in the Preferences dialog; unfortunately, the last two are still not available for editing.

If I knew how, I could simply patch the 1.0.4 binary, but I haven't a clue how to do that, or whether it is even possible.

Turns out gcc-base was installed, but not gcc.  Installed gcc-12 (with dependencies), but ./configure still fails because /usr/bin/ contains gcc-12 (a link), rather than just gcc.  Are there more associated gcc packages which need to be installed?