Quote from: LaudaM on May 18, 2015, 04:31:45 AM

Quote from: altcoinex on May 14, 2015, 05:41:37 PM

For those people, there is the precompiled bitcoin.

This is not the same. I was talking about downloading the build environment and then compiling rather than compiling every library yourself.
The amount of potential errors is outstanding.

I do think in the past, there have been bundles of the precompiled prereqs. I think they were most often on altcoin guides/kits though -- of which I think a few here on bitcointalk link to such bundles but now outdated versions of the libraries(you'll def want to update at least ssl). I think the likely reasons they arn't common is that they the prereqs are often updated, combined with most people compiling bitcoin itself for educational purposes are generally interested enough in the whole process and an optimized environment so they don't mind compiling the pre-reqs.

The most common benefit from compiling from source use is for compilation flags that are not often included in redistributed binaries or libraries -- but since we are all(for the most part) using the same configurations, that is negated here. Aside from that, there are some architecture and platform differences, so something compiled on a new system might not run on an older platform due to having different(newer, unavailable to the old platform) optimized instruction sets. There will likely be some issues with things like system configuration, local system dependencies, paths, etc that are configured during compilation -- I am not experienced enough with the libraries themselves to know to what extent and if it is prohibitive of distribution.

Of course, there is also the security bonus of compiling everything involved directly from developer source. I tend not to trust ANYTHING pre-compiled with the bandit riddled wild west gold rush that is the cryptoscape -- unless running in a VM and even though with caution in regards to what it might have access to or be used for.