On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 10:36:01AM +0100, Mischa Baars wrote: > All of my makefiles only compile source files and link object files that > are NEW, as in the modification timestamp is newer than OR EQUAL TO the > access timestamp,
That's not how Makefiles work. Makefiles compare the mtimes of two files against each other. Source and target. If the source's mtime is greater than the target's mtime, then the target needs to be rebuilt. Most Linux distributions these days are disabling or half-disabling the atime field at the file system mount-option level, because of the tremendous inefficiency and wear on disks that it creates.
