On 06/21/10 15:05, Tony Abernethy wrote: > Maybe I'm just being dense, but HOW can you patch a system without > "building from source"? > > ... unless you have binary patches for all the architectures > and that gets much more complicated if you have combinations of patches > ...
The difference is building everything vs. building just the parts you need. We do have users in parts of the world where buying on CDs is not just about supporting the project, but also saves massive download times, and the source code on CD is very useful as well. Small patch files make life so much easier for them. It is also an issue with very slow computers, where a complete build may take days. Since most people now consider a 1GHz system "slow" and have moderately high speed connections, I'm not really sure it matters that much. The time required to patch and build each individual file is pretty substantial and interactive, as opposed to simply checking out the appropriate source and letting it rip and come back a few hours later and have a fully patched system. However, in the time the OP has refused to understand the directions, he could have rebuilt the system on a 66MHz 486DX2 with a bit of off-chip cache...and obviously checking out the code is not a problem for him either. Nick.
