Re: [gentoo-user] sudo in kernel config ?

[Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org>]

On Sat, 2010-09-11 at 10:24 +0200, Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> few months ago, I read linux kernel in a nutschell(sic), and the author wrote we 
> shouldn't do kernel operations (config and build) as root.

I call bullsh*t.  I've been compiling kernels for 17 years and for the
most part have done it as root without any problems.

What the author is saying is that, to an extent, in theory no one should
compile anything as root, or really do anything non-system-adminly as
root.  You should only do as root what is critically necessary (e.g.
make install) as root.

In a perfect, tidy world we'd all do that.  This world, however does not
exist.  Even portage, by default does configure and make as root (albeit
in a sandbox so it is safe(r). 

What the author means is theoretically the config/compile phase could
unintentionally cause some kind of harm to your system.  In practice I
have never seen this or heard of it.  The kernel devs are bright enough
to ensure that the compilation does nothing outside the source tree
itself.

It's a good guideline but, like the government's dietary guidelines, not
ones I intend to follow religiously.

> Is sudo (or kdesudo ?) a good replacement to that ?

sudo runs things as root, so effectively you've done nothing but add a
password prompt to the mix.

Gentoo actually makes this a bit more difficult, because usually one
uses portage to install the kernel sources, and they get installed as
root-owned, and only root has write access to the kernel tree.

Some people, such as myself, use kernel sources outside of portage (I
follow a git repo) and do so as a non-root user.  In this case the
kernel tree is not owned by root and the config/compile is easily done
as a non-root user.

If you are super-paranoid.  You can make a non-root copy
of /usr/src/linux and compile it as a non-root user.

But there really isn't any point in using sudo.  It's effectively doing
the same thing that you are trying to avoid.