[PLUG] Package management (was : Q: comparison of video formats)

[AthlonRob]

On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 08:37, Brent Rieck wrote:

> Why do you prefer to manually manage dependencies and compile from
> source?

Source dependencies are a lot more flexible than binary dependencies. 
Rarely is the source code released against a very specific set of
library versions or 'extras' that may or may not be present on my
system.

For example... I can compile GAIM with or without PERL support.  If I
don't feel like installing Perl on a system, I just don't put it on
there.  However, if said binary distribution decided to build GAIM with
Perl support, now everybody who uses GAIM needs Perl installed on their
system.

When you compile software on your system, it builds it against your
system... its headers and libraries.  If you start switching out those
libraries, you run in to problems.  If you build from source, however,
you just don't run in to those problems... sure, dependency tracking
comes in to play to save the day there, but it seems so much uglier from
my point of view.

And... I've never seen an optimized distribution.  I pick my CXXFLAGS
and CFLAGS depending on what I'm compiling and on what system I'll be
using it on.  If stability isn't paramount, but speed is... I season to
taste.

You just can't beat the power you gain over a system if you drop all
those binary packages out the window.  :-)

Rob