Re: Benefit of source packages?
On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 03:30:13PM -0600, Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:
> I'm curious: what's the benefit of source packages? Do they allow you to
> optimize the package for your system like Gentoo does? Are there any
> other reasons why they're "better" than regular packages?
I assume you mean Debian's existing source packages? If so, they are
the source that the Debian packages for the various architectures are
built from. Additionally, when the package is built it may use more
recent versions of libraries (like those from unstable). These normally
become dependancies of the resulting package. However, the package may
work just fine with an older version of the libraries. So, if you want
a newer version of a package, but it requires newer libraries that you
don't want to mess with you can try grabbing and compiling the source
package for the newer package version and compiling it with the older
libraries. Then there's also the matter of licensing. Many of the
software licenses require that the source for the distributed binary be
made available.
--
Jamin W. Collins
Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo
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