For years I have been using MacTeX which installs in /usr/local/texlive
, and have recently started using Homebrew to manage some packages (though not — yet — TeX). As a consequence of the adoption of Homebrew, I've changed the owner of all of /usr/local
to Me:admin
(from root:wheel
).
Is this change of ownership safe? Is there a reason that texlive
needs to be owned by root
?
Normally usr/local is owned by root:wheel so that multiple usr's can access it, so by default everything installed to it is owned by root:wheel. Homebrew takes the rather unusual (but convenient) step of subverting this. It says, look this computer is just being used by one user, so I'll give her control of usr/local. It does this to
- Make it more likely that all unixy installs will work for you
- Make it safer (if there are any other users using the computer) - as a homebrew user, you'll only screw your own account up wiht homebrew if something goes wrong.
As you installed tex before homebrew it has root:wheel ownership, this has nothing to do with texlive, and everything to do with the normal usage of usr/local. If you change its permissions to Me::admin, then only you will be able to use texlive - I'd just leave it alone :)