Not always. The GNU servers have been hacked since March & only got fixed recently. If you were a total paranoid, then you'd be reinstalling your system (assuming you've installed anything from there).
As Linux gets more popular I would expect it to get more attention from malicious types, so it may not always be possible to trust all packages. I predict that hash sums & trust signatures will become increasingly important. Of course - CVS should still be OK, as long as you trust the main developers. A deliberatly bad SF project would quickly get noticed - but small random sites, I'd be thinking twice before su'ing to install. Brad > -----Original Message----- > From: Yuri de Groot [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, 21 August 2003 8:42 a.m. > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: 'make install' as 'root' (Was: Easy of program install) > > > On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 08:17, Brad Beveridge wrote: > > How many of us blindly run "make; make install" as root > > for certain apps? I know I do. > > I regularly come across install instructions that say: > 1. ./configure > 2. make > 3. su > (enter root password) > 4. make install > > I wonder what would happen if I skipped step 3? > Probably run into permission problems, I expect. > > So I, too, install as 'root' darn it! > Can we trust all contributors to sourceforge etc? > > Yuri > >
