Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Build From Source vs. Packages?

Posted by Cliff on from the what-do-you-do dept.

mod_critical asks: "I am a student at the University of Minnesota and I work with a professor performing research and managing more than ten Linux based servers. When it comes to installing services on these machines I am a die-hard build-from-source fanatic, while the professor I work with prefers to install and maintain everything from packages. I want to know what Slashdot readers tend to think is the best way to do things. How you feel about the ease and simplicity of installing and maintaining packaged programs versus the optimization and control that can be achieved by building from source? What are your experiences?"

2 of 863 comments (clear)

  1. Built from source is better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Wooho i'm first. Hi Jeff!

  2. Translation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant
    I am a student at the University of Minnesota and I work with a professor performing research on the psychology of internet users. I would like to start a flamewar between Debian and Gentoo fanatics in hopes of collecting more data for our study. I intend to do this by using loaded language to dig up the tired and over-argued subjects of optimization vs ease of installation, and then insult people who use packages by insisting that compiling from source gives the user more "control".

    Honestly...

    But, in the spirit of things, here goes: this "control" you seek is an illusion, and optimization does not result in any measurable speedups vs any reasonably put together binary distribution.