# What is the longest time your computer took to compile something?



## neilms (Oct 29, 2012)

I started to compile gcc 4.7 on Thursday 25th October 2012. After typing '*make*' in /usr/ports/lang/gcc47 it took 57 hours to complete the build (presumably of the whole gcc!). I am hoping that '*make install*' will only be a few minutes :r

Have you spent longer compiling anything? If so, What?


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## SirDice (Oct 29, 2012)

neilms said:
			
		

> Have you spent longer compiling anything? If so, What?


Two whole days to build XFree86. Mind you that was a couple of years ago.


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## SNK (Oct 29, 2012)

On what kind of system did it take 57 hours?


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 29, 2012)

neilms said:
			
		

> it took 57 hours to complete the build (presumably of the whole gcc!).



What kind of CPU and how much RAM does your computer have?

My laptop with Intel 1.60GHz Duo Core CPU and 2GB RAM will compile the same port 30%-40% faster than my PC with a 2.8GHz P4 and 3GB RAM will. 

Nothing has ever taken that long to compile though. About an hour to compile Firefox on my laptop.


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## _martin (Oct 29, 2012)

I remember it took me 3 days to compile Gentoo form scratch to KDE 3. It was 7-8 years ago. I started on Friday evening and finished on Monday. I don't remember what kind of computer I had though .. had too many to remember O-o.


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## neilms (Oct 29, 2012)

Trihexagonal said:
			
		

> What kind of CPU and how much RAM does your computer have?
> 
> My laptop with Intel 1.60GHz Duo Core CPU and 2GB RAM will compile the same port 30%-40% faster than my PC with a 2.8GHz P4 and 3GB RAM will.
> 
> Nothing has ever taken that long to compile though. About an hour to compile Firefox on my laptop.



My laptop is a dual core Intel with 2 gb of ram. I was surprised it took that long also.


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## neilms (Oct 29, 2012)

SNK said:
			
		

> On what kind of system did it take 57 hours?



Hi,
A Toshiba Satellite dual core Intel with 2 gigabytes of ram. A fairly powerful machine.


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## Lorem-Ipsum (Oct 29, 2012)

I remember compiling the Linux kernel on a P3 some time ago. Can't remember exactly how long it took

More recently I decided to install Libreoffice on my laptop running FreeBSD (Pentium dual core 2.1 Ghz) and that took 6-7 hours ish. That wouldn't seem too bad but I started compiling while in a lecture at Uni, expecting it to be done by the end (2hrs ish) and so I had to put my laptop in my bag and get the train home with it still ticking away. Just made it home and got it plugged in in time. Was on 1% battery.


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## ColdfireMC (Oct 29, 2012)

xfree 4.8.0 iMacg3...

3 days


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## wblock@ (Oct 30, 2012)

neilms said:
			
		

> Hi,
> A Toshiba Satellite dual core Intel with 2 gigabytes of ram. A fairly powerful machine.



Something is terribly wrong there.  Possibly throttled back for heat or power conservation.

Update: just now built lang/gcc47 here in about 20 minutes (i5 2500K).


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## nekoexmachina (Oct 30, 2012)

It took about four days or so to compile whole KDE4 (4.0 or some 3.99999) in 2007-2008 on Gentoo. Some AMD CPU & 1.5GB RAM.
However that is not a clean KDE4 compile time, cause there was nothing installed in system except for Xorg if I remember. 
Now dunno if something I use would take more than 1h to compile.


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## neilms (Oct 30, 2012)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> Something is terribly wrong there.  Possibly throttled back for heat or power conservation.
> 
> Update: just now built lang/gcc47 here in about 20 minutes (i5 2500K).



I am surprised you built it that fast as the binary version takes around that time to download. 

I think the install script had to fetch and build a whole bunch of dependencies also. I never had things such as libtool and binutils installed before. But still I agree that something was not quite right. I had built gcc 4.7 on my Netbook 2 weeks earlier and it only took around 6 hours then even though I am sure I selected all the same build options. My Netbook has about the same ram as the laptop i used.

I am about to start testing my new complier so I hope that it installed without any serious errors.


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## tingo (Oct 30, 2012)

Various versions of OpenOffice (the port) took several days to about a week to compile, the last two years. I can't remember the machine details now.


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## zer0sig (Oct 31, 2012)

OpenOffice, by a long shot. Probably took about a week, with 3ish full days just doing the compiling (other time taken up waiting for my input, and this was with portmaster)


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## Crivens (Oct 31, 2012)

The longest compile I ever had was a C file which only included one function.
The SUN compiler took ages when compiling it with feedback optimization and when I came in the next day I could not log in because the core dump from sunCC in my home directory was bigger than the quota. Turns out the compiler took about 12h to run out of memory on 64 bit ultrasparc. Yes, it was one file, one function and it was about 8 or 9 MB in size. Automatically generated code, obviously.

"Normal" port compiles, there OO on my old 32 bit, memory starved laptop holds the top of the hill with more than a day.


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## sossego (Oct 31, 2012)

II think that the initial setting up of the Power(PC) tutorial took a few days at first. Where the problem lay was in using a "WITNESS" enabled kernel along with a hertz value of 100 then 1000- one can run at 2500 hertz if desired.


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## xeube (Nov 1, 2012)

It took about a week to compile and install OpenOffice on my Asus Aspire One, that had 1Gb of RAM, back in 2008-09.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Nov 1, 2012)

It took about 26 hours to compile Xorg on my old laptop with a 1.2GHz Celeron and 256MB RAM.


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## Daisuke_Aramaki (Nov 1, 2012)

I remember my Open Office build took around 36 hours a couple of years ago.


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