don't use "sudo" before make install
On Mon, Dec 29, 2025 at 8:47 PM Keith Thompson via Python-list < [email protected]> wrote: > When I build Python from source, the "sudo make install" step > creates root-owned files in the build directory. I have not seen > this while building other open-source packages from source. > > Is there a way to avoid this, so no root-owned files are creates > other than under the target installation directory? > > The details: > > I typically build Python from a cloned git directory. The steps > (leaving out some irrelevant details) are: > > git clone https://github.com/python/cpython > cd cpython > git switch -d VERSION > ./configure > make > sudo make install > > The last step creates dozens of *.pyc files under the cpython/Lib > directory. > > I've recently started doing builds in a temporary subdirectory: > > ... > mkdir BUILD_DIR > cd BUILD_DIR > ../configure > make > sudo make install > > That does create a lot of files under BUILD_DIR, but I still get > a lot of root-owned *.pyc files under the cpython/Lib directory. > > I have to run some command under sudo ("sudo rm ..." or "sudo git clean > ...") to remove these *.pyc files before doing a new clean build, which > is a mild annoyance. > > Without having looked into the details, I would have expected these > *.pyc files to be created by `make`, not by `sudo make install`, > but perhaps there are good reasons for the way it's done. > > -- > Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) [email protected] > void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */ > -- > https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/python-list.python.org > -- https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/python-list.python.org
