3 ms·

I dislike sudo because I want my user-installed stuff to be installed in my damn home directory, not mixed in with system software. I want to me able to install

by blasdel 17y ago

I dislike sudo because I want my user-installed stuff to be installed in my damn home directory, not mixed in with system software. I want to me able to install things on a multi-user system without affecting anyone else. Every other non-language-specific package manager blithely assumes that it's the only one on the system, so they assume that nothing is already present, and don't even think about the possibility of independent unprivileged use.

telemachos 17y ago
Fair enough, but there are two separate questions here: 1. Where do you want the software? 2. Are elevated privileges required to put the software where you want? If you want to load all your software into $HOME/bin, then more power to you and no sudo is required. However, /usr/local serves an important and valid purpose (to provide packages system-wide), and it should not be available without elevated privileges. (By the way, 'not mixed in with system software' is misleading, since OSX ships with an empty /usr/local. Nothing you put in /usr/local mixes with anything.) Homebrew's official README suggests changing the ownership of /usr/local, and I think that's a terrible idea for multi-user machines. (Having said that, I suppose that many people have single-user machines, and in that case the issue is largely moot.) Finally, a simple way to put software into your $HOME without ever needing sudo is available in most cases: ./configure --prefix=$HOME
- blasdel 17y ago
  And those two separate questions are both ones that no other package manager even bothers to ask! /usr/local does start off empty on OS X, but it's where every random .pkg you download likes to put stuff. You'll get mixing unless every non-app you install comes from a package manager. On FreeBSD every package that didn't ship in the default install goes there. There's a reason that MacPorts uses /opt/local by default.

by blasdel 17y ago

telemachos 17y ago

Fair enough, but there are two separate questions here: 1. Where do you want the software? 2. Are elevated privileges required to put the software where you want? If you want to load all your software into $HOME/bin, then more power to you and no sudo is required. However, /usr/local serves an important and valid purpose (to provide packages system-wide), and it should not be available without elevated privileges. (By the way, 'not mixed in with system software' is misleading, since OSX ships with an empty /usr/local. Nothing you put in /usr/local mixes with anything.) Homebrew's official README suggests changing the ownership of /usr/local, and I think that's a terrible idea for multi-user machines. (Having said that, I suppose that many people have single-user machines, and in that case the issue is largely moot.) Finally, a simple way to put software into your $HOME without ever needing sudo is available in most cases: ./configure --prefix=$HOME

blasdel 17y ago
And those two separate questions are both ones that no other package manager even bothers to ask! /usr/local does start off empty on OS X, but it's where every random .pkg you download likes to put stuff. You'll get mixing unless every non-app you install comes from a package manager. On FreeBSD every package that didn't ship in the default install goes there. There's a reason that MacPorts uses /opt/local by default.