On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Alex Hargrove wrote:
Also, is it better to install Apache + MySQL from the included SUSE RPMs, or download the respective tarballs and compile from source?
SuSE have applied patches - both of their own and from those available on the respective distribution sites. They have also gone through the configuration to match the customary location of things on the filesystem per SuSE. Download of the source should only be done if you're working on developing the software in question, hence are using the latest CVS build. If you were, you wouldn't be asking this question. If you particularly feel the need to recompile from source so that you have the compiler options you want (particularly code generation for the newer processors if you've the latest gcc, SuSE just do it for a 586 target with a few exceptions like glibc is compiled for 686, or perhaps you want certain build configuration options like InnoDB for MySQL) then grab the SuSE source RPM (SRPM) set and modify your RPM build instructions for the options and issue a rpm rebuild. If you're after more recent versions of code than distributed with your system (e.g. apache 1.33 v. the 1.28 for SuSE9.0) dig around in the /projects tree on ftp.suse.com ; if you don't find what you want there try the people tree. You'll find a variety of binary RPMs and source RPMs for updated software.