Reduce C/C++ Compile Time With distcc

An anonymous reader writes "Some people prefer the convenience of pre-compiled binaries in the form of RPMs or other such installer methods. But this can be a false economy, especially with programs that are used frequently: precompiled binaries will never run as quickly as those compiled with the right optimizations for your own machine. If you use a distributed compiler, you get the best of both worlds: fast compile and faster apps. This article shows you the benifits of using distcc, a distributed C compiler based on gcc, that gives you significant productivity gains."

Comments

nc: a better tool for distributed builds

[Eric Smith]

Instead of distcc, I use nc by Steven Ellis. It seems to be more flexible, though I'm not an expert on distcc, so I'm not certain.

I think nc can be used like distcc by redefining CC="nc gcc". However, more commonly it is done by putting $(NC) at the beginning of the build rules. Then you can use nc for any build rules, not just C compiles.

In addition to use with make, nc works well with SCons.

Excellent for software development

[inflex]

I came across distcc by chance about 4 months ago, and I must say, it has utterly improved things around here.

We reguarly develop/compile/debug a moderate-small sized software package, typically taking about 1 minute per compile. Now, while 1 minute doesn't sound like a long time, it starts adding up when you find yourself recompiling 100+ times a day.

With the inclusion of distcc into the whole situation, we're able to reduce that 1 minute compile down to a little less than 20 seconds; highly appreciated (although now we have less excuses to go get a coffee :-( ).

Distcc is a great package which can be extremely useful.

PLD.