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matandked
Asked: 2020-12-02 10:37:11 +0800 CST

Is it possible to avoid executing make and make install with sudo?

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Whenever it is possible, I try to use applications, libraries and plugins delivered through official Ubuntu APT. However, sometimes I try to compile something, like resynthesizer plugin for GIMP. In many cases compilation requires me to execute sudo make and sudo make install. Without that, scripts fails, because they tries to copy files to folders that root has permission.

Since I am not the author of the program, I'm really afraid to do so (to execute such scripts as superuser). I am afraid that it will break the system. Is it possible to safely compile programs without using sudo?

permissions makefile make

1 Answers

  1. It's always possible to compile software "locally" under your own home directory - how easy it is to install and run locally depends on the software's developers.

    For opensource software that uses the familiar automake recipe of

    ./configure
make 
make install

    the configure script should normally provide a --prefix option that sets the root of the installation path - for example

    ./configure --prefix=$HOME

    will cause generated binary files to be installed to the invoking user's ~/bin, libraries to ~/lib, configuration files to ~/etc and so on. The directories will be created automatically if the do not already exist.

    In the particular case of the gimp resynthesizer plugin however, the make install step apparently still tries to install a couple of files to $(GIMP_LIBDIR)/plug-ins, where GIMP_LIBDIR = /usr/lib/gimp/2.0 is hardcoded instead of derived from the --prefix value.

    This may be an oversight by the software's maintainers, or may be for compatibility with GIMP itself. However you can overcome it by modifying the recipe as follows:

    ./configure --prefix=$HOME
make
make GIMP_LIBDIR=$HOME/lib/gimp/2.0/ install

    which should result in the following plug-in directory structure:

    $ find ~/lib -newermt yesterday
/home/username/lib
/home/username/lib/gimp
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-map-style.py
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-heal-transparency.py
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-resynth-enlarge.py
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-render-texture.py
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/resynthesizer
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/resynthesizer_gui
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-resynth-sharpen.py
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-uncrop.py
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-heal-selection.py
/home/username/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/plugin-resynth-fill-pattern.py
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