GNU Make

What do you like best?

It's one of the best tools in compiling open source software for security hardening and custom configuration. We use it for building large binaries or libraries. It easy to update any source file, and any dependent files are regenerated with minimal effort.

What do you dislike?

You need to be an advanced or intermediate Linux/Unix user to be able to troubleshoot compilation issues. Installing GNU Make for the first time might be tricky depending on your Linux distribution if it doesn't have the necessary libraries or if you're trying to use a particular GNU Make version and you need to resolve dependencies.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

If you're considering using open source software or want to compile software from original sources for custom configuration or security hardening, you will most likely need to use GNU Make.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

We use GNU Make to create custom Nginx configuration and security-harden our systems. We also use it to compile the latest releases of OpenSSL directly for the source.