this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2022
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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How To Correctly Install Suckless Software (thekernal.xyz)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by TheKernalBlog@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[–] Aiwendil@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Lets set aside my personal belief that suckless is a satire that too many people started to take seriously...

Always using the latest git version as done in the article doesn't strike me as the most sane thing to do if you "just" want to use the software especially as suckless offers version tarballs.

But suggesting sudo make clean install to build is really not okay...(and also not how the suckless tools I checked suggest it). You cloned (or better extracted the tarballs) as user...there is not a single reason to build the software as root. If you have to install then do it in two steps, build as user and only "make install" as root.

[–] toneverends@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Ha. Pipe some random URLs to a root shell while you're at it. /c/whatcouldgowrong

[–] toneverends@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you really like routinely building core packages in your system from source, use Gentoo. It's a distro made for building everything from source, so is one of the best set up for the risks that entails.

[–] Aiwendil@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

As gentoo user I can't argue with that... ;)

But I think there are reasons why someone would want to build suckless tools manually...namely that their configuration is mostly done in the source-code (Damn, it's so hard to not write anything too opinionated about suckless but I really try my best). But even then I agree with your other post that it's far better to use the distro facilities for building the the distro source packages just with your own patches applied.

[–] toneverends@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is definitely the incorrect way to install most software. Use your package manager. At least use a community repository or build system if you have to.

[–] onlooker@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

I would mostly agree. However, there are exceptions and customizing suckless' simple terminal (or st) is one of them. Last time I used it - which was about 5 years ago, granted - st didn't have a config file. If you wanted to change even the most trivial things such as fonts, colours, etc., you had to edit the code. As an example, here's a patch if one wanted to use the solarized colour scheme in st:

https://st.suckless.org/patches/solarized/

In these few instances, the article actually is helpful, since the user would have to compile the application from source.

[–] TheKernalBlog@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

I would agree that it is the incorrect way to install most software, but suckless software is different. In order to changes, even simple ones like changing the font or colors, you need to rebuild from source manually.

[–] const_void@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Suck what?!