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0 pointsgiancarlostoro7y ago0 comments

Are there many apt packages that don't require root / sudo privileges to install something?

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4 comments · 2 top-level

xrisk7y ago· 2 in thread

There should be a way to just `make install` it to whatever location you want, IMO.

You can also extract the files from a .deb file and place them wherever you so desire as well though if you really want to be that extreme about it. I see no issue with installing things as root, it's running random software as root that's the real issue. If you verify what the post-install script for a Debian package is doing (ie not running anything not already on the system) you should be fine to install KeyBase and any other package as root.

Packages don't run the software they install unless it installs a daemon or something.

jxcl7y ago

My concern isn't that I don't trust Keybase to not be malicious, it's that I don't trust their packaging to not conflict with other packages. Debian has a very strict packaging process and it effectively guarantees a stable system, but installing packages that don't follow the standards that their packagers have could cause problems on upgrades.

I don't know enough about Linux to verify that the Keybase package does everything right; I delegate that to the Debian packagers and don't install anything as root unless it's from the Debian package repositories. Any software that I need that isn't in the distro is installed to a folder inside my home folder, where it might conflict with other custom installed software, but at least it won't break the entire system.

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emilfihlman7y ago

Only a small fraction actually require privileges for normal operation. The issue is mostly with using /etc for configuration and so on.

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