Packages vs Source Code
 

How does the performance of pre-compiled binaries fare against compiling source code?

I'm thinking that by creating my own packages form source code, then upgrading each package in my system, that I would get a preformance improvement.

Would this improvement be noticable enough to forget about automatic updating via apt and start compiling packages from source, or should I not waste my time investigating this and stick to pre-compiled binaries?

Running RedHat 9 on a 1GHz Duron, 80Gig Hard Disk, 256 MB RAM.

1 real way to find out, however...

I find that most packages that I grab binaries on, use for a while, then decided to go source with, tend to run a bit more solid, a bit faster, and open up a bit faster as well once I go source. I am running slackware, so that might have something to do with it ;)

Cool

II've got to agree with MasterC here - it does seem that when packages are compiled from source, they fit tighter to the system. That's probably because they're compiled for optimum configuration for your system.