Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> Before I answer to this question, I cannot help noting that you don't > *HAVE* to compile everything from source. In fact, if you install a > RELEASE version of FreeBSD and use pkg_add to install the binary, > precompiled packages of just the applications you are going to > use... there is absolutely no need to rebuild anything from source.
True for the CDs. But once you want to upgrade, things get more complicated. For example, I did not find a package for OpenOffice 1.1.1 in the "offical" places, although OO is certainly an excellent candidate for a package. This led me to the conclusion that packages, in the FBSD world, are considered less important than the very well maintained ports.
I would prefer it to be the other way round: go for packages, unless you want to tweak anything.
> Now, some of us -- actually, I feel that this is a large percentage of > the FreeBSD users, if the amount of questions posted here on this list > is of any significance at all -- a great percentage of us likes trimming > our installations; we like building our packages with the exact options > and feature sets that *we* prefer. In such cases, having the ability to > build from source is absolutely marvelous.
I agree with that argument, you can tailor the compilation. But it's probably not systematical, but rather the exception.
I do not agree with an earlier argument, which was that you could change the source. I have been programming for 25 years now, I am certain that you don't change code, not even in a reasonably sized project, without spending a large amount of time.
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