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Rev

+1: If you decide to compile from sources or simply unpack a tarball, think twice before doing a make install to the /: you may overwrite files or add files which the package manager is not tracking, and this may break your system. Think this should be etched deeply in your mind!

Deer Hunter
– Deer Hunter

2013-01-08 19:04:18 +00:00
Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 19:04
@njsg great answer, thanks.. How do you deal with software that is not packaged for your distro, then? Can you think of any real-life practical examples in which installing a software from the developer breaks the existing system?

posdef
– posdef

2013-01-08 20:36:43 +00:00
Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 20:36
@posdef I use Gentoo. As it is a source-based distro, software is already installed by compiling from source, using "ebuild scripts". So I first look up to see if anyone else did one of those before. If they did, I use that, if they didn't, I try to write my own. This ensures me that even with a system-wide install, it will protect against collisions (overwriting existing files) and it will be able to completely remove the files. If it does not work, I just have to uninstall the package. [...]

njsg
– njsg

2013-01-08 22:36:17 +00:00
Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 22:36
[...] If it's something I don't need system-wide, I may as well as compile it under $HOME and run it from the source directory.

njsg
– njsg

2013-01-08 22:37:00 +00:00
Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 22:37
@posdef As for software that breaks the system, maybe nVidia drivers? It has been a while since I have used nVidia cards under Linux, but once in a while I still see people commenting how it screwed their system. I don't know how likely it is, but you're modules, drivers, maybe even some configs (udev rules, maybe?), if any of that breaks your system, you have to remove it by hand, I doubt it's that easy to keep track of all the things you have to remove. [...]

njsg
– njsg

2013-01-08 22:50:59 +00:00
Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 22:50

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