-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Greg Folkert wrote: > On Thu, 2007-05-03 at 13:59 +0100, yag wrote: >> Hi >> >> I would like to know whether installing from source rather than >> from the repositories has any advantage in terms of performance or >> something else. I didn't notice any difference when comparing >> mplayer's behavior, although compiling it myself gave me the choice >> of fine tuning the available codecs as well as installing the very >> latest version, for instance. > > This is not Gentoo. Gentoo's vision of "maximum performance" is a great > effort, but in reality is far from optimal. > > For every report of "Woot! Compiling from source kicks butt. Why didn't > I do this earlier", I can find 1 that disagrees with you and 1 that says > "maybe it is worth it for max performance, but WOW, 196 hours to get a > workable complete system, I'm not so sure" > > The statistics I find important are the massive amount of testing some > have done (I leave that upto the reader to find, should you need help > finding it, please ask the list to help find it). These people have done > installs of LFS/Gentoo and other source distributions and "highly > optimized" the compilation process. Following multiple "best guides" to > compile by. In the end, it really depends on WHAT you want to > accomplish. > > Given that most of the things that "typically matter" like word > processing and surfing the internet and listening to music... playing > cards, etc. I would hazard to say that: > > No it is not worth the time and effort to "install from source" > > The reason I say this, is even if you get 1%-5% improvement in > performance, are you really going to see (really and truly "feel") it? > The answer is: no. > > Now, if you are doing nothing but ripping DVD or encoding MPEG files or > doing full CGI animation renderings which sometimes take WEEKS to finish > the sequence, then even 1% improvement may in fact be worth it. But then > again, recompiling everything takes a very high amount of time and then > you are just competing for processor time from the "rendering". In > business terms it would be cheaper to just ad a few more machines. > > One last point, if compiling from source is so great, why does Gentoo > supply pre-compiled binaries for about 95% of the available packages > that can be emerge'd on any one system? The answer is: Because compiling > take a very long time and people are impatient. They want Gentoo for the > "elitism" aspect of Gentoo, but none of the waiting. > > So, in summary, there are a few situations where compiling from source > is desirable. But in general, you will not notice the difference. The > only thing you will have done is add to the eventual heat death of the > universe.
Exactly the point I was trying to make, but you said much better than I did. Greg, you really are an eloquent GNU/Linux guru. Kudos. Joe - -- Registerd Linux user #443289 at http://counter.li.org/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGOhmliXBCVWpc5J4RAr94AJ9PYd8Eig0V4o1QTUuBnNqdpkkHiwCggleY qmMP/JvgPF42vSe5n1nyLQ4= =P3as -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]