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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
