[arch-general] makepkg as root

[Eli Schwartz]

On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 2:12 PM, Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at rocketmail.com>
wrote:

> In the past I sometimes had no reason _not_ to run makepkg as root, when
> I wanted to compile from ABS, located in /var/abs/. I'm aware about the
> drawback, that actually isn't relevant for my kind of computer usage +
> several available backups. However, indeed, for my needs non-root 100%
> does do the job too. No, I won't copy from ABS to some user dir, I
> simply will chown or chmod in a way the big teachers won't us to act
> self-responsible (I simply ignored the kindergarten flame-war like
> posts). JFTR my machine isn't a server or a terrorist top secret
> whatsoever machine. It's a digital audio workstation and there are
> several, individual, complete backups available for each month.
>


If you are using yaourt, there is a sync option
    -b, --build
            Build from sources, ABS for official packages, or AUR if
packages
            is not found. Specify this option twice to build all
dependencies.

So: 'yaourt -Sb packagename' should build that package even if it is from
the repos.You don't even need to keep the abs tree. Just build stuff the
same way you'd build AUR packages.


> Resume: I can live without '--asroot', but I'm against dropping it,
> just for backwards compatibility. Imagine that somebody wrote a script
> or whatever, that needs '--asroot'.
>
> IMOH it isn't wise to ignore backwards compatibility. And btw. I
> dislike the claims mentioned by a link ...
> "Linux has never been about 'choice' or 'freedom' and those myths
> should just die out." ... underpinned with a link to redhat :(. IMHO
> Johannes Löthberg is completely wrong, likely a maintainer for the
> wrong distro.
>

Well, I couldn't care less about their nonsense, but I still don't see why
that means we need backwards compatibility. Backwards compatibility is a
good thing, but never a reason to hold back the software from what it could
become.

I can think of worse things than people needing to update their automation
scripts. Especially if it is something Arch doesn't want them doing anyway.
;)