On the Panotools wiki there's a step-by-step guide http://wiki.panotools.org/Hugin_Compiling_Ubuntu
Each program has similar steps:
-Make a folder in /home/[user]/src
-clone the mercurial repository (thus creating a folder [program].hg
-then create a folder [program].hg.build and launch building
-When choosing branches make sure to use the last one with only numbers (eg Hugin 2010.2)
One note: if occours this error while launching hugin
hugin: error while loading shared libraries: libhuginbase.so.0.0:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
execute this command in the Terminal
ldconfig -v
