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Apparently, though unproven, at 23:47 on Saturday 11 September 2010, Dale did |
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opine thusly: |
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|
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> >> My point was, if the sources are say in the user group, then any user |
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> >> can edit them? Right now, they are in the root group and owned my root |
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> >> which for security reasons is a good idea. That way a regular user can't |
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> >> edit or modify the kernel sources. |
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> > |
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> > The group can only write if the files have the group write permission |
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> > set. Still in Unix 101 domain, hehe :) |
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> |
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> I know that. Why would a person want anyone BUT root to be able to |
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> access and change the kernel sources? Lets see if asking it this way |
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> makes more sense. lol |
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|
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Gentoo does things different. If you read Documentation/* in the kernel |
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sources, you will not find there what Gentoo has. |
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|
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/usr/src/linux was intended by the kernel devs[1] to be where the system |
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headers are stored - what glibc uses to build. Like everything else in /usr/ |
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this is obviously writeable for root only (usually). |
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|
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The intent is that you download kernel sources to ~, build there and sudo make |
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install. |
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|
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Gentoo needs a kernel tree (not just headers) for all manner of stuff to build |
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against. These days many distros also do it this way to accommodate the needs |
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of getting nvidia-drivers and vm products to build their drivers etc. This |
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must obviously also be writeable only for root. |
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|
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So, the ancient "advice" about not building as root is bullshit. It might have |
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been good advice once but like all advice it's time is past. |
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To answer your question: |
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|
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"You wouldn't. Anything else is just daft." |
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[1] this itself might be ancient cruft and hopelessly out of date |
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-- |
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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |