Hi all,
I'm not really sure how to ask this question, so I might just ask in a confusing manner, but when building software is there a real advantage nowadays to build it to use shared libraries or is it better off to build statically? I was thinking about this as I just installed nekoware's git to test it vs my own build, and there was a bunch of other dependencies I had to install, I was wondering if building it statically would of saved some headaches? I used to hear how building stuff to use shared libraries saved HDD space but this was in the days when HDD was scarce. I guess what I want to ask is what is the real penalty for building static binaries? Does anyone have a general rule of thumb on this topic?
also, when building a static binary, whats the prefered way to do it? I saw in some configure scripts a "--disable-shared" and "--enable-static", and googling around I saw one can do LDFLAGS=-static, but to be very honest I haven't really playe much with it.
Would Nekoware's dependency issues on various packages have been "better" if the packages had been build statically?
Thanks again y'all for putting up with my newb/RTFM type questions
