• definitemaybe@lemmy.ca
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    21 hours ago

    Which is WAY more economical.

    Rebuilding packages takes a lot of compute. Downloading mostly requires just flashing some very small lights very quickly.

    • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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      19 hours ago

      If you have multiple computers, you can always set up a caching proxy so you only have to download the packages once.

      • SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca
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        14 hours ago

        That reminds me of Chaotic AUR, though it’s an online public repo. It automatically builds popular AUR packages and lets you download the binaries.

        It sometimes builds against outdated libraries/dependencies though, so for pre-release software I’ve sometimes had to download and compile it locally still. Also you can’t make any patches or move to an old commit, like you can with normal AUR packages.

        I’ve found it’s better to use Arch Linux’s official packages when I can, though, since they always publish binaries built with the same latest-release dependencies. I haven’t had dependency version issues with that, as long as I’ve avoided partial upgrades.

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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        11 hours ago

        openSUSE Leap does have differential package updates. Pretty sure, I once saw it on one of the Red-Hat-likes, too.

        But yeah, it makes most sense on slow-moving, versioned releases with corporate backing.