[carbonica]

>>> "Don’t be afraid to compile code and modify it"

I was a bit thrown by this advice. Are there folks out there that are afraid to compile code and modify it?

[blhack]

Absolutely. The sad reality is that, to a lot of linux users right now (and I'm talking about people that know they're running linux, not android users), it's a black box.

Software is "packages" that you install with "synaptic".

Source code? Compiler? What's that?

[carbonica]

This seemed like a developer-targeted article, though. I mean, who is having trouble with even 1 million directory entries, let alone 8 million, who is afraid of a compiler?

[sixtofour]

That's not sad reality, that's success.

[uxp]

Throw a novice Ubuntu user into a FreeBSD system, and tell him to install a port, and 9 times out of 10 they'll freak out once they see GCC output on the screen.

Nothing against Ubuntu (RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Arch, et. al.), but source compilation is something they all have been letting their users avoid for a long time. The target audience is different.

[sp332]

That's because linux commands are generally quiet unless something goes wrong. ./configure, make and gcc can produce pages of output even when nothing is wrong.

[lloeki]

Even when there's a compilation step it can be hidden. Homebrew on OS X does compile each package, but produces no actual compiler output. VMWare Player regularly recompiles kernel modules when it detects a kernel upgrade invalidating them. To the user it looks like an bullet list installation step.

[qntm]

Speaking as a novice Ubuntu user, I don't even know what "install a port" means. Do you mean "open a port"?

[jamesgeck0]

Arch has a Ports-inspired system called Pkgbuild. Given the level of competence the distro expects of the user to start with, I doubt most Arch users would have a great deal of trouble adapting to FreeBSD.

[alnayyir]

I've rarely seen macports, FreeBSD ports, or NetBSD ports used as a harness to install modified versions of software. Hack jobs are almost always manual, so this purported benefit is a canard.

[nitrogen]

Are there folks out there that are afraid to compile code and modify it?

Some developers (myself included) may have a general preference for sticking with the "official" packages to avoid extra work when bringing up a new machine or migrating to a new distro version.

[burgerbrain]

Surely it should be the other way around too. Compiling code then modifying it seems impractical. :)