Why does the QtSDK 1.1 install in a few minutes, whereas Qt4.7.1 install takes hours?

[MattPhillips]

About 2hrs for me on a high-end 2009 desktop running Ubuntu.

[Zlatomir]

The most important*** component of your system (when building big libraries) is the hard drive.

***to be read as: has the biggest impact on the time of the build.

I didn't timed exactly (even if i built Qt many times), but my times are: about 2.5 hours on desktop (E6550, 2GB ram and 500 GB HDD), and on an mobile system a little more than 3 hours(T2350, 2GB ram, 160GB HDD)

[SixDegrees]

...and the biggest pig, in my experience, is WebKit, a monolithic rat's nest of code that takes well over half the total build time if it decides to build at all. This component is in desperate need of streamlining and modularization. If you don't need it, you can tell 'configure' to skip it and you'll be far better off. Not to mention you'll be done a whole lot sooner.