[clue-tech] if it's not too far out of scope... audacity -> OS related builds.

[mike havlicek]

--- On Tue, 11/4/08, David L. Anselmi <anselmi at anselmi.us> wrote:

> From: David L. Anselmi <anselmi at anselmi.us>
> Subject: Re: [clue-tech] if it's not too far out of scope... audacity
> To: "CLUE tech" <clue-tech at cluedenver.org>
> Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 7:54 PM
> Nate Duehr wrote:
> [...]
> > Pointing anyone toward it who's NOT interested in
> developing anything (probably a large majority of computer
> users) is kinda silly... unless someone's hoping
> they'll all of a sudden want to learn C/C++/[insert
> over-hyped language of the month here], and contribute code.
> 
> Yeah, well Bob expressed a willingness to compile from
> source.  He even claims to have downloaded the source code. 
> So even though it would be entirely superfluous I didn't
> want him to think the next step would be hard.
> 
> My first serious Linux system was LFS.  I learned a lot
> that I still appreciate and recommend it to anyone who's
> serious about Linux system administration.
> 
> Besides, my therapist is encouraging me to be more silly. 
> So thanks, I'll tell him what you said.
> 
> Dave
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> clue-tech at cluedenver.org
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Knowing how to build from source can also be useful for those who find a need to use "some" old equipment. I understand that this discussion has been with regard to an application and I am redirecting the general source build notion to the actual operating system. Something that I have recently run into is a desire to access files that I archived to QIC 80 floppy controller tape years ago and set aside. In this scenario (and I admit I was warned that there was going to be a movement to phase out the ftape driver from the standard kernel source a couple of years ago...:) I have found myself making some build decisions including choice of kernel source distribution.

I have been using RH and CentOs. On the face of it builds from the source rpms is supposed to be straight forward, but I have not found it to be so.
In fact I was relieved to find "Danger Will Robinson" referenced in an IBM build document. One obvious consequence is reducing your chances of any "formal" support by making such system changes... Throwing out a question here, I seem to have missed something in the CentOS non-root kernel build documents about how to override the root directory used in source tree preparation. How can one effect that override? For now I have simply done an rpm build based on a kernel.org "vanilla" tree...

In the past I did find it almost necessary to do custom kernel builds to gain performance and avoid driver conflicts ( particulary pre "stable" days of the module loading mechanism ). If you are a hobbyist, I think there still might be something to be said for establishing a set of compiler optimizations for your particular system as well as streamlinig away from carrying around unneaded drivers/modules  -> bloated kernel and wasted disk space.  


-Mike