That does clarify things. Thank you :)


On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 12:02 AM, Eric F Crist
<ecrist at secure-computing.net>wrote:

> On Sep 30, 2008, at 11:30 PM, Nick Scholtes wrote:
>
>  Hi Eric,
>>
>> Maybe I misunderstood the whole "rebuild" thing. You said:
>> <Many applications can be built natively on Linux with little, or no,
>> modification.  In most cases, there is no reason to 'rebuild' an
>> application.>
>>
>> Could you explain this more? Maybe this is what I was thinking of.
>>
>
>
> Nick,
>
> Many, maybe most, applications are offered as pre-compiled binaries.  For
> the vast majority of people, these pre-compiled binaries will work fine.
>  That being said, there are applications written for Solaris, FreeBSD,
> other, that are written closely enough for generic *nix, that they can
> follow the same ol' ./configure && make && make install routine, with little
> or no modification.  The fact of the matter is that more applications than
> not are written and already compiled against the Linux kernel.  Re-compiling
> will give you very little benefit.
>
> Some fringe cases where the extra work may pay off involve special
> hardware.  Whether it is simply old hardware (low RAM/slow proc) or embedded
> systems, or specialty hardware (Gx Macs, alpha, etc).  If you're running x86
> or x64 on modern hardware, don't waste your time compiling, if there's a
> binary available.
>
> Last, the biggest benefit of pre-compiled packages is the fact that they're
> packages.  This includes a mechanism to install the necessary dependencies
> and configuration files.  Source, typically, only compiles the binaries.
>  Here, again, you're best off using the packages/RPMs/ports/etc.
>
> HTH
> ---
> Eric Crist
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Art: http://www.coroflot.com/bellsoffreedom
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