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What are the differences between

sudo make

and 

sudo -s make

First example do not work with my software, there is always a header file missing. Login as root with sudo -s and compile works fine.

So what are the differences, wherefore sudo make is not working?

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1 Answer 1

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2

sudo -s runs the command as root in a shell referenced by the environment variable SHELL

sudo runs the command as root in the same shell as the original user

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  • but I dont understand the differences for make, could you clarify that? Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 10:20
  • 1
    make depends on shell environment variables like PATH, HOME, LANG. If you change of shell those variables are different and can cause problems. Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 10:51
  • Usually the software is installed using sudo (for example: "sudo apt-get installl ..."), then the installation of the software modifies the PATH of the user; meanwhile the PATH of root keeps unchanged. root's shell lacks of information that has been integrated in the user environment. Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 10:58
  • ok just tried it on PATH example: sudo echo $PATH /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games and sudo -s ; echo $PATH /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 11:04

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