[arch-general] Why is it dangerous to run makepkg as root?

[Bigby James]

On 05/17, Dimitris Zervas wrote:
> On May 17, 2014 5:22:32 PM EEST, Roland Tapken <ml at lalamuhkuh.de> wrote:
>
> BTW: Another good idea that would be helpful is add comments on installed packages on pacman. e.g. why did you install them. But that's another thread
> 

No offense, but if you need to ask yourself why you installed something *after*
you installed it you almost certainly never needed it in the first place, and if
you need the package manager to *tell you* why you installed it you're being
careless. If you're installing something just to try it out then do so, and if
you don't care for it then uninstall it right away. If you're wondering what use
you might have thought you had for that package some time after installing it,
the package description should give you some clue. What you're suggesting is
that someone write extra code for a feature that encourages carelessness and
laziness. It stands to reason that if an explicitly installed package is sitting
on your system and it isn't a dependency, and you can't recall putting it to
use, it can be removed.

--
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams