Bitcoin full node and query server
Jan 22, 2026
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Enligths19:23
Last year I built libbitcoin-system on a very old Ubuntu machine (4GB ram) and on a recent windows machine (16GB ram/i9 processor). The build time was way faster on the windows machine (maybe 10 times I don't remember).
I am quite new to C++ and building project. I am wondering what the cause of this stark difference. Is it due mainly to the hardware? Is the build time dependent on the CPU?
Thanks
(edited)7 replies · pmienk, Enligths, evoskuil · last Jan 23, 2026
pmienk22:10
ram, cpu, disk speed will all significantly impact build speed. That said, without additional details I wouldn't guess at the issues.
That said, a quick look at the CI build times for windows vs cmake vs autotools builds for libbitcoin-system shows that the last executed run was approximately 34-48 minutes for msvc/windows, 13-30 minutes for cmake/autotools/linux/mac combinations. these have differing parameterizations and we aren't in control of the hardware.
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Enligths09:44
Every time I modify a test file in the test folder, do I need to build the entire libbitcoin-system?
evoskuil09:47
And if you want to speed up work there you can delete most of the test sources temporarily. You need to retain main.cpp, test.cpp, and test.hpp.