On 7/27/2012 10:18 AM, Wietse Venema wrote: > Dennis Clarke: >> Do you think I can figure that one out ? No way. What I do find is >> vast amounts of info about how to put in ClamAV and SSL bits and auth >> bits and endless web pages that point to apt-get and RHEL yum this that >> and the other thing. [1] What I am seeing is that no one seeems to just >> get the sources and "do it". Perhaps my entire understanding and >> philosophy around open source is terribly flawed? > > Of course there are plenty people, but they have prior experience. > > If you have no prior experience, then you should not build a system > from scratch, when you don't even know what a working system is > supposed to look like. > > Instead, your time is better spent learning from a system that > already works. In other words, start with a pre-built distribution. > > Have a wonderful learning experience. > > And please ignore the idiots on this list who say that you are stupid. > > Wietse
To drive the prior experience point home, I've been building my own Linux kernels from vanilla source for about 8 years because I don't like stock kernels and hardware drivers as loadable modules, and 15MB kernel files when 1.7MB works fine. I'm very comfortable with it and get the results I want. There was a steep learning curve, not for the process, but understanding which of the 1000s of configuration options I needed to understand and change to meet my goals. If I wanted to or really had a need to, I'm sure I could build my own Postfix and Dovecot and etc from source. But given how well the Debian packaging system works, and the fact their Backports repo tends to keep up fairly closely with Postfix releases, I see no point in embarking upon yet another learning curve with no tangible payoff. I've better things to do these days with my time. I don't build any applications from source, only my kernels. I'm probably bass ackwards in this regard compared to many/most others. -- Stan
