Re: debian and ubuntu - answer from user not pretending to be guru
On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 08:51:28AM +0300, Andrei Popescu <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> was heard to say:
> On Sun,03.May.09, 10:18:49, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
>
> > However, does the package management software (as aptitude does) store
> > user preferences in the home directory? If, for example, you always run
> > aptitude as yourself then give it the root password when prompted, it
> > stores your preferences in your home directory. If you later run
> > aptitude as root, those prefernces won't be active. Also, vis-versa.
>
> It's a bit more weird than this (I thought about filing a whishlist
> bug): when you start aptitude as user it uses his preferences, but as
> soon as you switch to root (via the menu items or when prompted)
> aptitude also switches to root's preferences. Kinda' confusing.
There's a long and fairly tortured history behind which configuration
aptitude uses when. Basically: if aptitude uses $HOME instead of
changing to /root, then it'll end up sticking root-owned files inside
the user's home directory, including files the user might not be able to
read and/or delete.
Daniel
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