Keith wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:28:21 GMT,
> Alan Connor <zzzzzz@xxx.yyy> wrote:
>> On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:45:11 -0500, Ed Stankevich
>> <whoha@med.umich.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Where should a file like MIME-Lite-3.01.tar be installed ? /sbin
>>> /usr/sbin ????
>>>
>>
>> Is that the source for an executable? If so, you should untar it in
>> your home directory, or /usr/src and compile it from there as root.
>
> No, it should only be compiled as a user to prevent errors from
> screwing up your OS installation. The only time you run it as root
> is when you install the binaries.

It *should* be as simple as you describe. But often it's not.

Unfortunately, the environment of a typical user is often radically
different from the basic root configuration appropriate to such
compilations. Personal use of ~/bin in your PATH, odd LD_LIBRARY_PATH
settings that the root user cannot even use because that environment
variable is ignored, CC settings for variant compilers, etc. can cause all
sorts of grief when you then do the installation as a root user. And many
"install" tools insist on re-linking the binaries for installation, lest
libraries change under you or due to fascinating games with libraries not
being available for linking without special "-L" options until the
software's associated libraries are installed in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib.

Examples of such delightful wackiness include the installation of
alternative gcc compiler variants and the installation of OpenSSL, and the
installation of the ".el" files for emacs. This is why package managements
are so very, very useful: they allow you to follow how an expert did the
local, not-necessarily-root compilation and how the package should be
installed with what privileges to be able to run correctly, even if the
author of the tarball wasn't thinking along those lines.