If I'm building from source, why does it require more space than installing via apt-get?

Question

I was trying to install the program by compiling and then installing it. I choose PINTA. It requires these dependencies:

mono mono-xbuild automake autoconf libmono-cairo2.0-cil gtk-sharp2

and these resources:

• Need to get 20.6MiB/26.2MiB of archives and
• 66.4 MB of additional disk space**,

but when I used apt-get install pinta, it just requires 20.3MiB of additional disk space and 0/6616 KB of archives.

If I'm building from source, why does it require more space compared to the apt-get method?

Answer 1

mono mono-xbuild automake autoconf libmono-cairo2.0-cil gtk-sharp2

Those are the packages required for building Pinta, they are not Pinta itself. So, for building from sources, you need the libraries, the headers, toolchain, etc., so, the package already compiled is:

• [binary sources + hard linked libraries + configuration files generated + activated options] / the amount of packages that could be extracted from the sources (ie, some package have the debug symbols in other package)

• while the "real" size of your compiled binary sources + hard linked libraries + configuration files generated + activated options + headers files + tool chain + libraries - whatever you deactivate/uninstall later.

Also, you may notice that the packages generated by Ubuntu repositories are built in slightly older kernels, so even if you use the same set of tools/options, the results might not be the same due the differences of kernel and libc-dev version.

Answer 2

Braiam's answer is fine. In simple and short words, the difference is:

Installing from the repositories using apt-get downloads ready to use packages built for Ubuntu. But when you try to install from the source, you also need the tools to build the software (which means additional downloads and installations).

It's just like buying a ready hamburger from McDonald's compared to buying all the ingredients from a supermarket and making hamburgers at home ...

hope that makes it clear :)