Yeah, just use git pull origin and make and then make install. You can use make -j5 to speed things up a bit. The optional dependencies will only matter of you rebuild your current revision of Dolphin or build a new revision. In other words, you'll have to recompile to get the benefits of, say libbluetooth for native Wiimote support.
For VBAM, you can pull the latest source from their SVN and compile it. Additionally, try grabbing the Ubuntu repos for a newer VBAM package. Aside from some bug fixes, I'm not.sure there are a lot of differences between 1.8.0 and the latest. Note that the GTK+ Linux version isn't as advanced as the Windows version. Functionally though, they play the same games equally.
For VBAM, you can pull the latest source from their SVN and compile it. Additionally, try grabbing the Ubuntu repos for a newer VBAM package. Aside from some bug fixes, I'm not.sure there are a lot of differences between 1.8.0 and the latest. Note that the GTK+ Linux version isn't as advanced as the Windows version. Functionally though, they play the same games equally.