Build option in Pacman

ANOKNUSA · 2013-08-07 14:30:32

isacdaavid wrote:

ANOKNUSA wrote:
This question seems to crop up every few months, for some odd reason.
Because of the ABS and PKGBUILDS it is natural to expect some tool that makes automated compilation, in spite Arch isn't supposed to be source-based by default. But heck, how many binary distros have a ports/ebuild-like system? Arch is unique in that regard and I think it's being underrated; this could become the first officially supported hybrid distribution ever. Nice to hear directly from Allan and the opposed opinions, for instance, sitquietly's argument.
I coincidently found this fresh thread searching the web because I cannot make up my mind with building a GNU/Linux system from source. Given that I'm a happy Arch user I would like to try out the ABS before experimenting with Gentoo, and I also think Arch possesses certain advantages over the latter. So here I am to ask you: what method would you recommend for massively building and installing packages from its PKGBUILDS? srcpac is not even mentioned in the wiki and hasn't been version-bumped in a while, yet has an official package; whereas pacbuilder has a development entry on the AUR. Maybe raw makepkg and shell scripting, or maybe yaourt?

Some applications do gain performance advantages by being custom-built from source (the most common suggestions I've come across are media editors/transcoders and 3D rendering software), while others are simply pleasantly customizable. DWM and Vim are two examples I build from ABS, and I'll be trying my hand at a custom kernel soon (again; I've made half-assed attempts before, but never had a PKGBUILD to help out ). Rebuilding an entire system from source, though, seems like an exercise in futility in many home-computing use cases, at least with regard to machine-specific optimizations of the entire OS. Custom builds of ceratain software can be advantageous if one wants to put the time in, e.g. stripping down KDE or simplifying a server or embedded environment, or striving for a tightly integrated, minimalist zen state just for the pure joy of doing so (see sitquietly's comment above). But if the goal is to squeeze every drop of speed and responsiveness out of a machine---and most people seem to have the impression that this is the main advantage of building from source---I'd say there's no point. 'Cuz the one thing such discussions always seem to lack is raw data applicable to a wide variety of machines.

EDIT: Also, the ABS is much more like the FreeBSD Ports system than Gentoo's Portage; the whole Arch system is much more BSD-like than most Linux distributions. As I understand it, recompiling the entire system under FreeBSD is certainly possible, and many choose to do it, but it isn't considered "standard" or "best" practice.

Last edited by ANOKNUSA (2013-08-07 14:35:25)

sitquietly · 2013-08-07 16:01:56

ANOKNUSA wrote:

......

...very good summary to this thread. Thanks.

I build my Arch system from (sometimes heavily modified) pkgbuilds for the pure joy, like building my first computer from a Heath kit. I do have a long-term motivation to keep the advantages of "open source" as reality and not just theory. When I build my system from sources I get to take a look at the code (e.g. I automatically create a README for every package that includes all readmes and "./configuration --help" or "cmake $dir -LH" output for the sources) and get to know that I built my binary from THAT source code, and make my own choices about what options I need, rather than trust the binary that some "possibly working with the NSA" developer put together on his computer with the options that he chose. Fun, simplicity, security are reasons to actually USE source code.

Thaodan · 2013-08-07 20:54:49

ANOKNUSA wrote:

[...] [...]
EDIT: Also, the ABS is much more like the FreeBSD Ports system than Gentoo's Portage; the whole Arch system is much more BSD-like than most Linux distributions. As I understand it, recompiling the entire system under FreeBSD is certainly possible, and many choose to do it, but it isn't considered "standard" or "best" practice.

Or when you want to strip unneeded GNOME dependencies on a system which uses KDE SC only.

Arch Linux

#26 2013-08-07 14:30:32

Re: Build option in Pacman

#27 2013-08-07 16:01:56

Re: Build option in Pacman

#28 2013-08-07 20:54:49

Re: Build option in Pacman

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