[webkit-gtk] Why does it take sooo long to compile

[Alberto Garcia]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 03:01:52AM +0100, frank ernest wrote:

> I'm asking why it takes 3.5 to 4.5 hours to compile.

It takes a lot to compile because it's a big and complex project. 4
hours to compile still seems like a lot of time to me, but if you
don't have a fast computer or have little (less than 8GB) of RAM
that's what it takes.

WebKit developers normally use a powerful machine and/or some sort of
distributed compilation.

> I'm not the only curious one, see
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-7699536.html

Doesn't Gentoo provide binaries for large packages? I would suggest
using those for WebKitGtk, I don't quite see the point of building it
yourself, particularly not using -O0 as some people seem to suggest in
that forum.

> If anything can be done, we'd be interested in knowing about it.

Here are some tips, but if you don't have the adequate hardware don't
expect miracles:

https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKitGTK/SpeedUpBuild

Berto