On 2009-07-01, the following emerged from the brain of Logan Rathbone:
> On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:51:25 +0000, TomB wrote:
>
>> On 2009-07-01, the following emerged from the brain of Logan Rathbone:
>>> The problem is with the redundancy of compiling everything. It's a
>>> waste of time.
>>
>> Installing from source is not redundant. You can optimize for
>> older/specific hardware. You can configure out
>> options/features/dependancies you don't like. You can customize the
>> application to better suit your needs...
>>
>> There are many reasons to install from source.
>
> Sorry, that was a poor choice of words on my part.
No, I misread your statement. You did state "compiling everything".
> It's not *redundant* to compile from source in general - I compile some
> software all the time. It's just that the benefits of compiling
> *everything* are outweighed by the drawbacks. It's all about
> proportionality. But like I said, if people *enjoy* compiling every
> single thing on their system and *don't mind* doing a heck of a lot of
> waiting, they can go right ahead. Freedom of choice is one of the best
> aspects of Linux.
I agree. On FreeBSD I use ports and packages side by side. I like the
packages for their ease of installation, but I'm glad to have the
ports collection at hand for special cases.
I'm writing this message on a FreeBSD machine running CURRENT. I
rebuilt it just a few weeks ago in under 4 hours for the base system
and kernel, and a little over 2 hours for the installed ports. It's
running headless though, so I have no X or WM on it. I keep it around
just to see what's new in FreeBSD and use it a lot for mundane tasks
duch as mail, news, torrents, ftp ... If I can report a bug along the
way I'm glad, because that means the releases will be better. So
that's my reason to compile this machine from scratch once in a while.
> I just think it's silly, that's all.
You're entitled to have your own opinion.
--
Q: How many Romulans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Twelve. One to screw the light-bulb in, and eleven
to self-destruct the ship out of disgrace.
[Warning: do not tell this joke to Romulans or else be ready for
a fight. They consider it to be a disgrace, though it's
pretty good for a LBJ. Ed.]
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