On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 10:23:13PM -0400, Eric Siegerman wrote:
> Just to forestall comments from others, let me remind folks that
> ["emerge"ing a Gentoo package] *does* involve compiling from source :-)

Damn.  I had a feeling that was going to get me in trouble, but I
was too sleepy to figure out why.  I should have trusted my
hunch.  It was a dumb comment; I retract it.

Gentoo packages (called "ebuilds") are conceptually like FreeBSD
ports in that installing one involves typing a single command
("emerge" in Gentoo) that downloads the source tarball, possibly
applies patches, then configures, compiles, and installs it.

The (relevent) problem with things like RPMs and Debian packages,
however, isn't that they're already compiled; it's that they're
already configured, using choices that might not be the best for
one's own situation.  Gentoo ebuilds have the same problem --
they might make the wrong configuration choices.  So the fact
that they include that compilation step is quite beside the
point.

In particular, I suspect that by default, the Amanda ebuild
configures the package with "--without-debugging" (I suggested to
Glenn privately how to override that, but haven't yet heard
back).  Certainly it relocates the debug files using
"--with-tmpdir".

Even if it turns out not to matter in this particular case, the
more general point still holds:  as far as configuration-time
problems are concerned, a source-based package has the same
weakness as a binary one.  (Source-basedness makes it easier to
work around such problems, but doesn't of itself eliminate them.)

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics AT telepres DOT com
|  |  /
It must be said that they would have sounded better if the singer
wouldn't throw his fellow band members to the ground and toss the
drum kit around during songs.
        - Patrick Lenneau