[buug] Gentoo, Bluecurve and Linux too!

Patrick Soltani psoltani at ultradns.com
Fri Oct 18 12:33:49 PDT 2002


> 
> What binaries are you talking about?  On linux systems binaries can be
> re-built with source anyway.  Having a binary-based-packeged 
> system does
> not prevent you from (re-)compiling whatever you want.
>
I work with Solaris, Linux and FreeBSD.  Depending on the platform/OS we have to take different routes.
Also take into account that home network is perhaps less critical compared to production network that 10s of 1000 folks beat on them every day around the clock, 366 days a year!;-).

I personally like/use FreeBSD cvsup which gives you "almost" absolute control. Linux is ok, but not as much control, since it is geared to have mass appeal.  Again the main process is to verify the source code thru MD5, pgp, etc first.  Isolate your systems for build, config, test and more tests.  Having the source allows me to fiddle with switches, configurations, right at the "source" rather than config files the binaries use.

It allows me to inject my own debugging info and helps with debugging/troubleshooting.  Usually the binaries are optimized with the symbol/debug tables taken out.  So, if it breaks, you have no real way of pin pointing it.  Of course you can run things like truss, strace, etc, again the difference is obvious we you run a large network v.s. home network.

Binary is what the vendor thinks is "optimized" and "good" for you.  Source install is what "you" think is optimized and good for you; in a nut shell.
 
Lastly, we usually want something that the developer may not have thought about, source allows us to do just that, modify it.  Again depending on your point of view, home network/production network that may or may not be an issues.

Apart from these, I guess, it is how much time/resources you'd willing to spend on getting a piece of software running on your machine.  perhaps one of the reasons M$ has market share is that it takes all your "options" away from you. I am not a biz kid, I may be wrong.


Regards,
Patrick Soltani.





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