On Monday January 31 2005 15:21, andras.lorincz@gmail.com wrote: > The debian packages contain in their names i386. That means, as far as I > know, that these programs are compiled to be able to run on at least on > intel 386 processors. But does it also mean that if are run on newer > machines, they run slower because don't exploit the capabilities of the > newer processors? Yes, that's essentially true. > Is it worth to compile the packages before installing them, and if so are > there any configurations to be made to get a more optimized binary? For most packages, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't make much sense to have a shell or about any other interactive program use MMX and SSE extensions since those programs spend 99.9% of their time waiting for user input. There are some rare cases where a customized build will offer an advantage, all of them CPU intensive programs like raytracers, graphics applications, A/V codecs and games. Usually simply building a package from the debian sources will apply the correct processor-specific extensions, but it doesn't hurt to look through the debian/rules file before a build. -- Got Backup? Jabber: Shadowdancer at jabber.fsinf.de
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