Is distcc actually any faster than running the builds locally on a half decent machine? If I recall the latency associated with getting the file to the build machines often exceeded the local compilation duration. I remember being really excited about the idea, and really disappointed with the results.
Running it locally will always be faster as long as your machine is not a bottleneck (#cores, ram, ...). I think the use-case for distcc et al is to enable less-powerful machines to run builds faster by levering other machines. That’s exactly what we use it for at work. Our developers have not-so-powerful laptops and with distcc/icecc they can utilize the power of our build agents in the server room.
Also interesting to read: https://github.com/StanfordSNR/gg