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Distributed compiling with distcc

http://distcc.samba.org/

distcc, distributed, compiling, samba, compilation, c++, objective c, c, daemon, linux kernel

9^th of May 2004

distcc is a server-client program by the people behind Samba that allows compilation of C, C++, Objective C and Objective C++ to happen spread out on many computers, i.e. distributed. The daemon can be run on computers that have different processor as the one you're on. They can even be different operating systems.

The friend who told me about this had tried it to compile the latest Linux kernel. By using two workstations and his laptop he was able to do it in one fifth the time it usually takes. That's pretty damn impressive!

I really like distributed computing but my UNIX-foo is not good enough to use it without shooting myself in the foot all the time. But one thing I wonder. When you as a C developer sit and work on a big program, don't you mostly compile one single file that you're working on with its necessary header files? distcc seems to be more suitable for large compilations, not one at a time.

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