Re: SVN client vs CVS client

On Wednesday 19 December 2007, Anoop kumar V wrote:
> I am not sure if this is true. But my observation is this:
>
> CVS commandline clients seem more user friendly than SVN commandline
> clients.
>
> In CVS, there is just one file that can be placed in the path and executed.
> There is nothing to install and you do not need superuser / root permission
> to run the client.
>
> In SVN, it seems, you need to go through installation - the binaries are
> rarely available - it took a long time to find one for Solaris. And the
> instructions said that I need to be root to install and use the client.
>
> I am not complaining here - I am only trying to understand if the above is
> true. And how does one go about using an svn client (not a server) from
> solaris commandline. I cannot install anything, just want to connect &
> checkout code kept on an SVN server.
>
> Is this easily possible?
>
> Thanks,
> Anoop

Well, this thread got me worried a bit because I think there's a lack of basic
OS knowledge.

Both CVS and SVN can be installed as root and as non-root. Whether you need
root privileges is not dependent on the program but where you install it.
Almost all binary packages are meant to be installed for system-wide usage
and this means they want to install in /usr, which needs you to be root to
write there. This is true for both CVS and SVN ! Installing /usr/bin/cvs
needs root access as well.

So if you compile from source and don't want to be root (e.g. you just want to
try it out) you'd do something like:
  ./configure --prefix=/home/me/svn
  make
  make install

You'd end up with SubVersion in /home/me/svn/bin/svn.

Now, as soon as you got it installed (no matter where) you won't need root
privileges for either one. You do not need to be root to run SubVersion or
CVS.

Hope that clarifies things a bit.
Bye,
        Marc

-- 
Marc Haisenko
Comdasys AG
Rüdesheimer Str. 7
80686 München
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)89 548 433 321
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