Re: Sensible Computing (TM) [was Re: 2.2.13 - modules - failed dependancies]

["Chris J/#6" <nospam [at] nccnet.co.uk>]

> 
> Um, no, not really. There's no reason to be paranoid. Let's face it, that
> only matters if you're a sysadmin, in which case this is part of your job
> and you know how to do it anyway. For average Joe users on their home
> computers, it's a no-brainer - you don't need to worry about it. Because,
> unless you know what the the software is, you have no business compiling
> it. And I'm not going to run software in sand-box mode just to satisfy
> myself that it's okay - that's not foolproof anyhow. If I'm a home user,
> it doesn't matter squat if I compile as root, nobody or any other user -
> chances are, I'm going to have one user for myself and that's where I do
> all my work. If something goes wrong, I've hosed *my* data no matter what.
> Okay, if I'm root the system goes with it, but that's not important data.
> It only matters when you're in a multiuser system, and as I said, if you
> do stuff as root there then you're stupid anyway...
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Alex.
> 

The only thing I do as su/root (as opposed to sudo) are kernel builds and 
configs - I've not seen the reason for doing it any other way, and I know 
what I'm doing with them. The potential for screwing your system up on a 
kernel build (unless somone has trojan'd the makefiles) is with make 
modules_install, lilo, and copying the kernel into /boot. You did make 
backups of the old kernel first, right? If you screw the source code, you can 
always restore that - but if you've screwed the source, what were you doing 
in there in the first place (unless you're trying to tweak the kernel or 
you're a kernel hacker).

Anything else that needs root usually gets done as sudo - with pure su not 
being touched unless I'm doing lots of root stuff where typing sudo in front 
of everything would get tedious. I hardly ever login as root...

Chris...



-- 
@}-,'--------------------------------------------------  Chris Johnson --'-{ [at] 
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