A fast, free distributed method for C/C++ compilation (developerWorks) [LWN.net]

developerWorks shows how to use distcc to speed up compilations. "Now, just having distcc on one machine is pointless; this won't really give us any benefit. I'm going to find three friends on my LAN who are running Linux and see if they're interested, since everyone who installs distcc can benefit from the 'pool.' It is also worth noting that apart from the version of gcc you are running, there doesn't need to be anything else common about the machines: they needn't share a filesystem, header files, or libraries, or even be running the same Linux kernel or distribution."

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A fast, free distributed method for C/C++ compilation (developerWorks)

Posted Jun 23, 2004 19:59 UTC (Wed) by jgarzik (guest, #8364) [Link] (2 responses)

The quoted comment is a bit silly -- you do need to have _exactly_ the same version of gcc installed across all nodes, otherwise you get inconsistent results, occasional linking/ABI problems, and sometimes bugs.

apart from the version of gcc

Posted Jun 23, 2004 20:25 UTC (Wed) by ggoebel (guest, #4487) [Link]

That's probably why the quote reads "apart from the version of gcc". I.e., the author acknowledges that the identical versions of gcc are required.

You don't even need the same operating system...

Posted Jun 24, 2004 5:14 UTC (Thu) by dank (guest, #1865) [Link]

The author could have gone even further.
I have run distcc clusters containing a mix of
cygwin (x86), Linux (x86 and amd64), and Mac OS X (ppc) boxes.
As long as you have the *exact* same gcc installed, it works.
See http://kegel.com/crosstool, which lets you build
whatever versions of gcc + glibc you like on all three boxes,
together with a nicely integrated distcc server.

I think things like precompiled headers won't work across
different CPU types, though, so it's not perfect.