• andkit@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    11 months ago

    There are a few advantages

    • you can use the latest and greatest upstream versions (even versions under active development)
    • you can let the compiler optimize for your system (especially useful with PGO, but honestly only worth it for a few applications, e.g. video encoders)
    • you have full flexibility over optional features

    And it’s a good learning experience, sooner or later things won’t just work and you have to learn about compilers, linkers, various build systems and script languages etc.

    But yeah, for most people it’s not worth the effort

    • dukk@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      11 months ago

      That’s kinda why I love Nix. Everything builds no problem, and most of the time it’s already cached so you don’t even have to build it.

      The other day I wanted to patch Picom, it was as simple as creating an overlay to change the source files. Seriously, it’s all so freaking easy.