Just wanted to make a discussion or have suggestions on how documenting enviroments can make it easier to compile apps or dicuss ways to make it easier to compile apps or legal reverse engineering software:

Ideas I have:
1. create better logging from terminal/ programs that log.
2. Portable programs or build envirements -- might be easier to compile because the dependancies will be close by;
3. Build envirement tutorials on web.
I kept thinking about this and was thinking we could make it easy for young children or complete noobs?

I also got kind of ashamed that some of the linux community looks down on people not being able to compile from source (not everyone)

This seems to be one of the barriers to linux.

i. EXAMPLES OF COMPLICATED BUILD ENVIROMENTS:
1. Firefox build enviroment and compile time...

2. Cooking: Baking a cake from scratch... you don't have to create the chicken

(A case can be made in programing for the intelligent design of life)

ii. EXAMPLES OF SELF COMPILING/CUSTOMIZABLE BUILD ENVIROMENTS:
1. TinyCore Linux
2. Puppy Linux
3. cut and paste scripts

Hopefully this can be a discussion of how to document or make building easier...

Compiling Firefox from source is not something that toddlers and noobs needs to do, and the difficulty of compiling Firefox from source is not a barrier to using Linux.

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For my specific 'wants', then, it's a barrier to using linux :-) 720p video on low spec cpu/gpu :-) :-) It has a bunch of libraries.... :-) might need a linux librarian to explain it... where's the fun in toddlers not being able to compile firefox and kernals, and supertux paint ?? :-)

EDIT:

If you want to easily compile stuff with your own optimization settings, then use Gentoo.

Then you just do:

Had already looked at that (thanks) in a previous post about raspberry pib+ iofftopic,
but that gives me an idea to add;
A. don't use hardware specific optimizations
--Other ideas not directly unrealated to how to make apps easier to compile, because they Can circumvent the actual problem:
2.a. use higher level languages (May be feesable with current systems or

b.(less efficient/feesable: economical cost of hardware, etc.)
use middleware such as a , or a virtual machine, or an emulator or simulator

Okay I'm confused.

Why do you think building your own Firefox package will make it better at playing 720p video?

That wasn't my context...
Firefox 32bit currently has a bug on some 32bit rasbian systems (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...x/+bug/1711337), like with raspberry pi B+ hardware so I couldn't use the 2x faster quantum version... which was supposed to be 2x faster than old chromium. So I had switched to a 64bit gentoo that you brought up and it worked well (until crashing, but that's another topic).

I'll add another reasin why compiling can be hard for users:
bugs

I came up with another idea.

Red Hat Linux, I read is one distro that is supposed to provide support for backwords compatability. If distro authors did this people would not have to re-compile apps for newer kernels or possibly architectures. An example of a compatibilty issue was when I was using ubuntu, I think it was 14 ... feisty fawn... not sure the number. But eventually the virtual machine I was using completely stopped working and my old hardware didn't support eifi bios years ago and this was a problem.

Just take any one of your numbered items and start learning what you need to know to implement it and demonstrate your point. Document your efforts as you go -after all, you'll be learning a million things from others who have been down the road before and also documenting their course. When you have finished one numbered item from your list, begin the next one, unless you are ready, by then, to retire from a lifetime effort. Please do make it so easy for the rest of so that we can simply point at the screen and have it produce what we want, no matter how complex and ill-thought-out it might be.

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Supposedly found a type of backward compatability architecture, called I386 (not an intel 386 cpu speed standard) but seems to at least be a compiler standard. reference: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4...002d64-Options example -mtune=generic; I was used to using i386 .deb files in earlier times. Also generic.tar.gz linux source code archives -- hope someone can explain this?

untrained people can use button user interfaces, with a graphic, picture, discription or label above the single button that runs a program, similar to a menu kiosk: pick A for apples, B for Bananas; this is a narrower learning curve at first than a gui. Some have written programs for this... Commodore 64 had a programmers reference manual that came with the hardware. Puppy Linux has an on-screen guide on startup. An every day example is the icons/pictures on some home appliances or tv remote.

will look for backwards compatibility, used for awhile...

Who uses chicken when baking a cake?!@

Use smtube for 720p youtube videos on old hardware that can't do better than 360p in firefox.

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Yes agreed! If I haven't said it before: opinion: using video in a web browser, is like putting wheels on a boat to drive as a car. Made a seperate thread, quoting you, thanks.