I'm afraid it appears to be just you :(
Works for me :)
Don't know what you are doing different, my recipe:
``` mkdir /path/xxx; cd /path/xxx; git clone https://github.com/geany/geany.git; cd geany ./autogen.sh --prefix=/path/xxx; make install; cd ../bin; ./geany -c ../config ```
That doesn't touch any system dirs (note no sudo needed :)
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