Question

How long does it take to build a typical application (GCC, Python, chromium, firefox, openoffice, linux)?

Answer 1

It depends on what an typical application means for you. If it is just an easy app that asks a few things, then i wont take long, but if you want to make a bit more complicated one with graphical layout and so on, it is normal that it will take way more time. And so each language has his differences. With one you can make a specific thing faster then with other one.

Answer 2

I'm building sage on my notebook and it's already taken 8 hours :-P

Answer 3

netbook*

Answer 4

you mentioned not typical

Answer 5

I've been staring at GCC's output for 12 hours now :( How do the Gentoo folks manage with their "Completely built from source" OS?

Answer 6

16 hours and still building...

Answer 7

A netbook isn't necessarily a normal development platform, either ;)
Build times depend on a variety of things - number of classes, include hierarchy, complexity of code, optimized or non-optimized, and of course the hardware you build on - CPU, hard drive, memory, etc.

Answer 8

Alright, the final output is like 2.2 GiB. While starting at the compiler outputs I saw C code, Lisp, Fortran, and Python.

I should buy a better laptop... should I get one of those 'core i7' ones?

Answer 9

It depends on how often you build such large projects. Keep in mind that, most of the time, you're not doing a full rebuild either. When changing a few files, only part of the project will be rebuilt. Only linking has to be done fully from start to finish every time.
Only add new hardware when your current setup impedes you *in practice*. Full project rebuilds are a good benchmark, but not what you practically do all day. For improving link times, a good SSD is likely the best bet. For improving compile times, a multi-core CPU and making sure that your build spawns into multiple processes can do wonders. Running builds on my Phenom II X6 across all 6 cores on my SSD is a joy, it's usually done by the time I've switched hand position on the keyboard to run the executable after building. If your projects only consist of a couple of files, that won't help and you're better off with less, faster cores.
I'd say try doing normal work (changing some things in one or two files) and then build. See how long it takes, and then decide whether an upgrade is worth it.
That being said, most netbooks run a 1.6 GHz Atom. Calling that CPU anemic would not be doing justice to anemia. If you do development anywhere near regularly I'd recommend a faster computer with a bigger display - but it doesn't have to be top of the line by any stretch of the imagination.