Make?

[Katherine Chant]

Ok, I finally managed to install Mandrake 9.1 on my production system as
a multiboot.  Woo Hoo!!  Now, I am trying to get my CD-RW/DVD-ROM to
function as a DVD player...gotta get my dose of Buffy!...and I am
running headfirst into problems.  So I DL dvdread, in gzip form.  Unzip
and yadda yadda, try to make.  Nope, says no makefile (when I can see
that there is a Makefile.in and a Makefile.am in said folder).  So I'm
thinking, rpm, not so clean, but hey, I'm daring.  So when I run
rpmdrake, gives me have to install the file I'm installing as a
dependency, and then gives me file is corrupt or some such.  So all I
can think is that I am missing something horrendously obvious.  I tried
to make both as user AND as Su, thinking maybe I needed to root to
install.  Anybody able to point out my clear newby mistake?