Emerge clone for Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu, or: Compile your own, dude!

Sunday, 15th Jun 2008 at 17:41 (administration, linux, open source)
Tags: apt, apt-build, aptitude, debian, emerge, gentoo, ubuntu

There is a nice overview about apt-build, the package I’m talking about here. So I will not say much. Only so far as what to do to try it out. On my system gnomes system manager is fairly slow. So I gave it a try:

1. install the bundle:

   sudo aptitude --reinstall install apt-build
   

2. configure your processor (dpkg-configure asks you about it)
3. add deb-src to sources.list if you haven’t already
4. run it on gnome-system-manager:

   sudo apt-build install gnome-system-manager
   

And there you have it. You might want to copy the list of packages that apt-build installs via apt-get build-dep so you can mark them as auto installed using aptitude when done:

sudo aptitude markauto list_of_packages_you_copied_before

or, even easier, use apt-builds –remove-builddep option.

It really does make a difference!

If you’re really keen or you happen to have an older system just wasting away try this:

sudo apt-build world

and see what happens 😉