Hi there. Currently, i'm building an linux from scratch. Now most of the packages are pretty small. But there ate some large once, like qt, kde, and openofiice. Openoffice takes 14 hours to compile!!!
Woulden't it be nice if you had a program what could

a) monitor the build proces, that is, tell you how much time still is left with a bar

b) you could pause the build proces at any given time and continue later.

How would you like such a program. Or does it alraidy exist?

I don't know if such a utility exists. It could be pretty difficult to show the progress as a percentage, though, since you can't always know in advance how long it will take to compile something. I guess there could be a rough estimate, though, based on the number of files needing compilation, their size, etc. Pausing and continuing later would work pretty easily.

Also handy would be a summary report of error messages or other warnings, especially for big projects where you can't sit there and watch it for 14 hours.

Seems like there would probably be a program or script that does some of this stuff. Have you looked around at various build tools to see if any of them do this?

You should have a look at automated linux from scratch.
http://automated.linuxfromscratch.org/

It does quiet a lot of what you want already.

a) How could you ever know???

b) you already acn really, normally ctrl+c ing will kill the currently compiling process, everything that has already finished being compiled on't be compiled again if you run make again

Well, the thing is I was wondering if such a thing could be build. And I just wanted to get the opinion of some of you guy's before I would wast my time on a project like this.
And ye, I'f noticed ctrl-c -ing a build proces and then running make again generally works. But i'm afraid you could get unexpected results and end up with an broken build. I don't know if that's troe though.
Any way, I got the idea when A sibling of mine came storming in to my room and asking me how long the damn build proces is going to last.(He to wanted to use the computer) I had to say I just didn't know. Kinda anoying for him, no?

Good point, it's no fun having compilation hogging the computer.

Though, I have had pretty good success with using the machine for other stuff while it's compiling. You may be able to find some 'nice' options to make it kind of run in the background, too.

I have been thinking about this. It should be possible to tell quite accurtaly how long a build is going to last. Think about it, the makefile contains info of what the computer should do and it shoulden't be to difficult do make script to determain the speed of a computer. Agreed, it's going to be cinda hard to figure out what the exact job of the computer will be if you only have the makefile. But in principle it should be possible.
Another good point pointed out by wapcaplet, is compiling in the background. Now I know ofcource this is possible, because, after all linux is a multitasking OS. But it would be nice to let it compile with reduced priority so that you could start other cpu intensive progs and let the build proces take up less cpu power. Then, when nothing is running, it could take a little more cpu power. Or am I reinventing the weel here?