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Well, the problem is that it's not simple to recompile. There's a number of different build systems. Dev libraries you might not have installed, and that might

by SCHiM 5y ago

Well, the problem is that it's not simple to recompile. There's a number of different build systems. Dev libraries you might not have installed, and that might no longer exist. Warnings that turned into errors in your version of the compiler, and all sorts of other nastiness. I dread every time I need to install a (older) package from source. I think around a quarter of the time it turns into a multiple hour adventure of frustration, only to discover the library it was missing is called $NAME-dev on my distro...

saurik 5y ago
> ...only to discover the library it was missing is called $NAME-dev on my distro... You lost me at this part: if the dependency is easy to install and the issue is you just don't know that all of the headers are in -dev packages this seems like the easiest problem to never have again. Really: right up until there I was rooting you on.
alerighi 5y ago
As far as I know gcc doesn't turn warnings into errors from one release to another. In fact the default is that no warning is considered an error, unless you use options to force a different behavior. This is something that Apple seems to do (last time I used a mac I've seen that the Apple compiler that is a proprietary build of clang have some warning considered errors enabled by default), but I never seen in any Linux distribution. For code, you can compile by specifying the correct C standard. Unless the build system is badly written and doesn't add the correct -std=cXY to gcc of course (but it's trivial to fix). Regarding libraries, that is a real problem. Because to compile and old software you should use old version of the libraries, and they are usually not easy to get (and then it's a pain to compile them, and put the correct environment variables to make the software you are building link to that libraries and not the one in the system). I'm always able to compile a software, even an old one, on my system, and it never took me more than a couple of minutes. But I recognize that I'm a pretty experienced Linux user, so sure for the average user having a binary package is more easy.
- Quekid5 5y ago
  I'm guessing that they're talking about -Werror. (Which should never be specified in the build config you distribute, but is fine for tightly controlled environments like your DEV and CI environments.)
bombela 5y ago
I have been personally and my whole professional life on Linux for 15y. And I have the exact same feeling when I have to compile something. The waste of time to compile anything is staggering. And more often than not I give up on failure after 2h. Because one of the recursive depency is impossible to build. Or I got tired of git cloning or wget'ing 50 differents stuff.
ammo1662 5y ago
Can’t agree more. Especially when the source code you want to build has a lot of build dependencies, and they have version conflict problem with your environment. Sometimes it will ends with: XXX is missing, required version mismatch, install correct version, your computer crash.

by SCHiM 5y ago

saurik 5y ago

> ...only to discover the library it was missing is called $NAME-dev on my distro... You lost me at this part: if the dependency is easy to install and the issue is you just don't know that all of the headers are in -dev packages this seems like the easiest problem to never have again. Really: right up until there I was rooting you on.

alerighi 5y ago

As far as I know gcc doesn't turn warnings into errors from one release to another. In fact the default is that no warning is considered an error, unless you use options to force a different behavior. This is something that Apple seems to do (last time I used a mac I've seen that the Apple compiler that is a proprietary build of clang have some warning considered errors enabled by default), but I never seen in any Linux distribution. For code, you can compile by specifying the correct C standard. Unless the build system is badly written and doesn't add the correct -std=cXY to gcc of course (but it's trivial to fix). Regarding libraries, that is a real problem. Because to compile and old software you should use old version of the libraries, and they are usually not easy to get (and then it's a pain to compile them, and put the correct environment variables to make the software you are building link to that libraries and not the one in the system). I'm always able to compile a software, even an old one, on my system, and it never took me more than a couple of minutes. But I recognize that I'm a pretty experienced Linux user, so sure for the average user having a binary package is more easy.

Quekid5 5y ago
I'm guessing that they're talking about -Werror. (Which should never be specified in the build config you distribute, but is fine for tightly controlled environments like your DEV and CI environments.)

bombela 5y ago

I have been personally and my whole professional life on Linux for 15y. And I have the exact same feeling when I have to compile something. The waste of time to compile anything is staggering. And more often than not I give up on failure after 2h. Because one of the recursive depency is impossible to build. Or I got tired of git cloning or wget'ing 50 differents stuff.

ammo1662 5y ago

Can’t agree more. Especially when the source code you want to build has a lot of build dependencies, and they have version conflict problem with your environment. Sometimes it will ends with: XXX is missing, required version mismatch, install correct version, your computer crash.