[CentOS] Compile vs. RPM

[Johnny Hughes]

On Mon, 2006-01-09 at 00:18 -0800, Mickael Maddison wrote:
> Hello CentOS,
> 
> I'm an old hat, and have been compiling my own MySQL, Apache, PHP,
> OpenSSL, ModSSL, etc. for my webservers for years.  I'm playing around
> with the RPM installs on CentOS, and have basically been able to get
> most things setup so that they "function" about the same.
> 
> If I could stick to RPM's rather than compiling my own sources, it
> would save me a fair bit of time, but of course, it would limit the
> customization benefit.  what I'm wondering, is if anyone on this list
> has any good reasons why one method would be better, more secure, etc
> than the other.  I'm tempted to start using RPM's instead of compile
> sources.

Usually in an RPM distro it is better to use RPMS if at all possible.
That is because there are several requires that must be met throughout
the system that aren't if RPMS are not used.

Also, not using RPMS means that you must manually track all security
updates to all packages and install them, rebuilding everything as
required ... and then there is the issue of backporting to maintain
compatibility (which can be very important in the case of specially
compile apache modules):

http://www.redhat.com/advice/speaks_backport.html

So my advise is to use RPMS unless you absolutely have to compile
something.  Even then, understand the effect that compiling your own
items has on the stability of the rest of the system.
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