Are there any risks or disadvantages to building software from source, compared to installing a package? Can it mess with my system in any way?
I usually avoid it because I’ve found it to be a faff and often doesn’t work anyway but in a couple of cases it has been necessary.
The irony is that big things like Firefox can get the most advantages from building for your specific CPU variant, especially if you use them frequently.
Yeah, but only when you build with lto+pgo which will take even longer
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Mozilla/Firefox_Benchmarks_2025_Q1
Look I don’t have heat in the winter so I compile Firefox for various processors to keep my bedroom warm okay?