here are the steps to buid ODE:

(0) if you're using Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler, you have the option
    of using the workspace and project files in the VC6 subdirectory,
    or you can follow the instructions below.    

(1) get the GNU 'make' tool. many unix platforms come with this, although
    sometimes it is called 'gmake'. a version of GNU make for windows
    is available at: http://q12.org/ode/bin/make.exe

(2) edit the settings in the file config/user-settings. the list of supported
    platforms is given in that file.

(3) run 'make' to configure and build ODE and the graphical test programs.
    to build parts of ODE the make targets are:

	make configure		create configuration file include/ode/config.h
	make ode-lib		build the core ODE library
	make drawstuff-lib	build the OpenGL-based graphics library
	make ode-test		build some ODE tests (they need drawstuff)
	make drawstuff-test	build a test app for the drawstuff library

    all of these targets will do an implicit 'make configure'. if the
    configurator screws up then you can edit the settings directly in
    include/ode/config.h.

(4) to install the ODE library onto your system you should copy the 'lib' and
    'include' directories to a suitable place, e.g. on unix:

	include/ode  --> /usr/local/include/ode
	lib/libode.a --> /usr/local/lib/libode.a