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View Poll Results: Have you ever compiled the source code of an open source application?
Yes 277 89.35%
No 31 10.00%
Not sure 2 0.65%
Voters: 310. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 11-06-2019, 10:27 AM   #16
LinuxGeek46
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Registered: Oct 2019
Location: Raleigh, NC
Distribution: Fedora
Posts: 23

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Just for a small utility


Yes, I modified the source code for a very small utility that needed a newline, and I recompiled it. It was truly trivial but I did it.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 10:36 AM   #17
wolsonjr
Member
 
Registered: Aug 2007
Location: IL/US
Distribution: Deb, Mint, Slack, LFS, Fedora, Ubuntu(LXDE)
Posts: 71

Rep: Reputation: 34
kernel, LFS, some personal code, but nothing recent
 
Old 11-06-2019, 10:38 AM   #18
Terry Coats
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Registered: Mar 2017
Posts: 122

Rep: Reputation: 54
I've got this down.

Code:
./configure --prefix=/usr
make 
sudo make install
although I sometimes have to chase down library dependencies.
linuxfromscratch has been my distribution over the past many years
although it has become tiresome lately.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 11:13 AM   #19
nattydread69
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Oct 2009
Distribution: mint, manjaro, centos
Posts: 10

Rep: Reputation: 1
I really like to dabble in compiling open source projects for my own use.
I recently discovered the Urho3D game engine, its really great.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 11:24 AM   #20
DavidMcCann
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Registered: Jul 2006
Location: London
Distribution: PCLinuxOS, Salix
Posts: 6,149

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I've compiled a few things in the past when they weren't available or the distro's version was buggy, but that was in my Fedora days. The biggest program was Fontforge. One thing I learnt was that anything that doesn't use the standard automake system is likely to be a problem!
 
Old 11-06-2019, 11:24 AM   #21
CaptainFreeze
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Registered: Feb 2010
Posts: 5

Rep: Reputation: 1
many times over the years
 
Old 11-06-2019, 11:28 AM   #22
choogendyk
Senior Member
 
Registered: Aug 2007
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Distribution: Solaris 9 & 10, Mac OS X, Ubuntu Server
Posts: 1,197

Rep: Reputation: 105Reputation: 105
Numerous times over many years, first on Solaris and then on Linux.

Now, I typically run Ubuntu LTS servers, and I try to stick with the managed apt packages. These get security patches, which I apply regularly. That's much easier than tracking every application you built yourself for security updates and then applying them yourself individually across multiple servers. Of course, this is a system administrator's perspective, not a developer's perspective.

That said, there are applications that I routinely build from source. One is Amanda. I need features that are not in the managed package for Ubuntu, and I want to control the options. There are also applications that may be important for our environment that simply aren't available through Ubuntu; for example, Galaxy (computational biology or bioinformatics software).

Hmm. Then there's the ancient times, compiling source on a Honeywell G635 mainframe. But, I think that was in the days before opensource was a thing. We did share code sometimes, but there was no internet and nothing that you would think of as a repository.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 11:45 AM   #23
s1im
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Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 2

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Yes, but it's been a while since I needed to do so

Had to compile cdrtools to get them installed and working a couple of years ago when k3b was defaulting to use other burn apps that failed to support burning to blu-ray discs well enough to be reliable.

Also smake, and I don't remember why now, but it's probably because I needed it to run the make scripts to build cdrtools.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 11:48 AM   #24
morollan7
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jan 2006
Posts: 14

Rep: Reputation: 0
Yes, I had to compile xawtv to get it to work on Slackware. Was a little difficult, because
I had to hunt down some other libraries etc. to fill dependencies. Little frustrating but
really valuable training. Haven't had to recently since I switched to MX Linux a few years
ago (yay team!).
 
Old 11-06-2019, 01:04 PM   #25
freecode
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: May 2015
Location: Austin, TX
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 5

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
Wink Yes I have

Many times I have compiled source, for several reasons. Often to try to ensure what I was making fit my system and needs.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 01:12 PM   #26
Crippled
Member
 
Registered: Sep 2015
Distribution: MX Linux 21.3 Xfce
Posts: 595

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
I have never even seen a source code let a lone compile one since that's way out of my area. My hard drive in my head is filled to capacity with a vast abundance of other knowledge.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 01:30 PM   #27
RLKnighten
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jan 2010
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 5

Rep: Reputation: 0
Emacs, TeX, misc stuff not included in Slackware

Emacs, TeX, misc stuff not included in Slackware and of course the software I've written for myself.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 01:39 PM   #28
axdoomer
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Apr 2018
Location: Canada
Distribution: Debian 9 Stable (Stretch) x64
Posts: 6

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I added support for a device to Linux by adding a USB id. I sent a patch via the mailing list so the code is now in the kernel. I also made multiple fixes to Chocolate-Doom.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 01:44 PM   #29
273
LQ Addict
 
Registered: Dec 2011
Location: UK
Distribution: Debian Sid AMD64, Raspbian Wheezy, various VMs
Posts: 7,680

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Not an application but I've compiled the kernel (in a Debian way) a few times for fun and to get things working.
I've definately compiled something else but the program escapes me. I do so so very rarely but, on occasion, it's the best way to get things working.
 
Old 11-06-2019, 01:50 PM   #30
anbj
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: Sweden
Distribution: Slackware 13.37
Posts: 3

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
Everything from time to time. Last I cross-compiled the gcc suite (ct-ng is my friend).
Emacs for different platforms. I can't live without it.
Many more than I can remember.
 
  


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