Mark A. Hershberger wrote:
> "Jeremy (mailing list box)" <listbox@unix-boy.com> writes:
>
>>None that I've ever seen... It sounds like a good idea to pursue
>>though. Considering my BSD background, I'm partial to Gentoo, but I'd
>>like to see some proof with benchmarks, etc. that other distros are
>>faster even though they aren't built from source....
>
>
> They are all built from source. The point of using pre-built binaries
> is that one person compiles the system once (with a reasonably good
> optimizing compiler) and everyone can use those binaries.
Yes, yes they are built from source, but you know what I mean... One
can't expect that the binaries you download are going to be optimized
for all x86 hardware. For the longest time, everthing was optimized
for the original generation of Pentium processors (the p5 designation)
and really didn't take advantage of the newer features. This has
changed now, but it illustrates that binaries are built according to the
most prevalent hardware, not what you have sitting in front of you.
> That is a far better use of computing time than having everyone
> compile their own binaries.
That depends really. If you are trying to squeeze out all the
performance you can from your OS by having it optimized for your
hardware, building from the source for your hardware is worth it.
If, however, you just need an OS running and aren't worried about
getting a process done with a few less operations, then no, building
from source probably is a waste of time.
> (Gentoo seemed to need more compiling for installation than FreeBSD,
> but that could just be that I used FBSD differently than Gentoo.)
IIRC, that's because Gentoo requires a kernel compile and then you have
to compile the other binaries (like shells, etc.). FreeBSD loads a
"generic" kernel and generic binaries (of utilities) that don't need to
be recompiled unless you are tweaking for drivers or performance. Most
of the compiling is when you are building stuff from the ports tree.
J
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Received on 10/07/04
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