I dont know a great deal about how the debian source packageing is done, but with the enough distribution, they say you use automake to genrate your Makefile and compile your binaries from source.
I would have thought that this would be fairly easy to do with linux because all the src packages should be setup a standard way. I guess it would require a script to make changes to the makefiles as necessary, before compilation. Ive as yet not tried to compile with cpu specific options, i hadent considered wether compiling with different CPU options would introduce compile errors. >From what ive gathered from being on debian lists for a few days. 1. One of debians main goals is to support the lowest level of available hardware 2. Distribution size is limited packages that have a low low utility/size ratio are shunned.... archive bloat So i guess the most acceptable way would be to make a tool that makes it easy for the end user to recompile it themselves from the src. . It could be done as a seperate distribution based on debian src packages, but independent from debian org <RANT MODE> Debian is the most altruistic distro there is however if my constructive criticism is worth anything then i say. The strength of open source is that you CAN customise it to your needs, you can optimise it for your specific CPU, so if users can't optimise there binaries for there CPU, then open source is being used to its fullest potential. Why let a whole new breed of distro's like (mandrake and enoch) pop up when there one good feature could be implemented by debian. Archive bloat.... i thought debian was about giving the user the choice of what they wanted rather them presenting them with subset of whats available. I feel silly even sugesting this, but why not have official binaries for other cpu's, its the only way they would get widespread use. Possible reasons 1) Archive bloat Storage is cheap ($22 per GB where i am), mirrors should be able to handle this, thats what there all about. CD's are cheap, a coupla dollars 2) Bandwidth of mirrors Mirrors could JUST mirror the 386 packages if they didnt consider others worthy, its there choice </RANT MODE> Subject: Re: CPU specific binaries > I'm a sysadmin who also would be interested in recompiling to optimise for > specific CPUs. As far as I can make out, to do this I have to download > source and edit the debain/rules and/or Makefile of each package to pass the > appropriate optimisation flags to the compiler, then rebuild the package. > > Then I have to deal with any errors I've introduced. > > There has to be a better way of doing this. Am I missing something? > > What is needed is a switch when invoking the build process or a configuration > file on the system somewhere that says "I'd like to optimise this package for > a 486/P5/K6/whatever". The package build process could (optionally) check for > this and pass all the appropriate optimisation options. > > If something like this existed, I'd use it. It would also make it easy to > create 3'rd party optimised debian distros. > > Alex King > > > On Tue, Oct 19, 1999 at 02:48:04PM -0400, Kalen wrote: > > On Tue, 19 Oct 1999, Darren O. Benham wrote: > > > > I would have thought that it would be fairly easy to change the compile > > > > option in the debian source packages (im not very familiar with the format) > > > > so it would be easy to make cpu specific builds of debian. > > > > > > It depends.. if you are suggesting that Debian only support a small class > > > of CPUs, yes. You are offtrack. Debian is specificly trying to support > > > 486 computers as well as the newer stuff. > > > > > > If, on the other hand, you're talking about doing something for yourself or > > > for some derived distribution... more power to you... > > > > On that topic, what is the optons at compile time to optimize a pkg for a > > specific CPU? Or do I need a utility for that? Or am I completly off base > > and the standard "make" will do that for me of my system only for my CPU? > > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >
