This probably gives me away as a total beginner, but here's to learning:

I decided to install my programs from source (./configure;make;make install) rather than the tgz packages, and wonder if I should somehow try to limit the number of shared libraries installed on my system to avoid slowing it down?
The other distributions (ie suse) comes with loads and loads of libraries, but are also dead slow in both booting and day-to-day operation. I prefer slackware due to it's speed and stability and don't want to mess that up.

ldconfig runs when the system is booting, and takes a while, and I notice from Pat's blogs/thoughts that he's conscious to keep the number of libraries low.

How's the tradeoff between using the apps I really like on Slackware, and bogging it down with loads of libraries? Or am I completely lost besides the point as dynamic libraries are just that - dynamic, and thus loaded on as-needed base only?

(The app in question this time is amaroK as I prefer over juK, which wants musicbrainz libraries and libvisual etc etc)

Thanks for your insight!

-Y1

I've never worried too much about shared libs, or noticed any slowdown whatsoever. If you wanted to you could compile everything static, but really if you're that worried about it I hope you are not a gnome user

edit: note that if you compile everything static, the binaries sizes will increase ( not a big deal just something to note)

This is slighttly off topic, but you should try and use a program called 'checkinstall' which replaces 'make install'

this will add your installed program into pkgtool, so that you can safely upgrade or remove it whenever you want to with ease... (and hence deleting unwanted libraries when doing so ... )

Thanks for the insight on both the shared libraries (which I will no longer worry about) and even more so the hint about checkinstall - good thing I'm still in my experimental vmware box where I can wreac havoc without any real consequences

-Y1

As long as all the libraries are not loaded into memory it wont make a difference. Really think about it. It exactly the same as having say 1,000 text files on you hard disk as long as I don't load those babies into memory I'm okay. My disk filesystem may take slightly longer to find files but not much.

Say for instance if you load program xyz and it loads 100 libraries then of course you system will slow down. Even if they are not cpu intensive you'll still take a hit because the memory managament system has to keep track of more files in memory.

Some distro's load the strangest things at boot. With the only effect of slowing down you system. You would think that if someone knew enough that they needed the specific program xyz they would load it themselves, right? I just don't get it... what is the advantage of loading 50 services at boot? Some distributions make no sense whatesoever.

That's the beauty of freebsd. Only the core daemons start.

That's one of a few reasons why most linux distros turned me away.

Ports, security, and no overstarting of services... you can't ask for much more