Re: problem with ldconfig and packaging libs

[Oscar Levi <elf@buici.com>]

On Thu, Dec 17, 1998 at 10:54:59AM -0600, Marcelo E. Magallon wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 17, 1998 at 08:41:54AM -0800, Oscar Levi wrote:
> 
> > I'd let this drop, but I think I'm gonna learn somthing.
> > 
> > How is it that you created files owned by root without ever changing
> > your uid to root?  
> > 
> >   fakeroot chown root.root FILENAME
> > 
> > doesn't do it, right?
> 
> No, it doesn't. But it does what you need. Try this:
> 
> $ fakeroot bash
> $ whoami
> $ ls -l
> $ rm /etc/passwd (don't try rm -rf /, you'll get a nasty surprise)
> $ passwd root
> $ exit
> 
> read fakeroot(1)

I read it before I made any posts.  Maybe you should read it again
because the documentation is vague. It says:

DESCRIPTION
       fakeroot  runs a command in an environment were it appears
       to have root privileges for file  manipulation.   This  is
       ...
       fakeroot  works by replacing the file manipulation library
       functions (chmod(2), stat(2) etc.) by ones  that  simulate
       the  effect the real library functions would have had, had
       the user really been root. These wrapper functions are  in

These statements are not very accurate.  Had I 'really been root', the
files owned by user joe would still be owned by user joe.  It would be
more clear to say:

  fakeroot simulates root priviledges by replacing instances of the
  user's real id with root id such that files owned by the user before
  running fakeroot appear to be owned by root while running fakeroot.

Ho hum.  I now see the utility of fakeroot.