I was installing glib 2.3.6 with the 'make install' command but it was having problems creating directories outside of my login. I had to login as root to get the install to go. Is this normal?

Thanks,

yup. Only root can install and remove programs!

yes, because a normal user cannot modify (or should not modify) anything outside its home directory; everything else is system stuff and only priveleged users can modify that

programs install in system directories, so you need to have root permissions to install

and hopefully you are simply doing "su" to become root in a terminal as opposed to actually loggin in as root with gui

Being new to Linux and still learning things I installed Firefox and Opera and Gaim from my user (instead of root) in my user directory. Is this going to cause problems for other login users on my computer?

Should I go back and uninstall these programs and reinstall them from root?

Ouch. The pain of being ignorant.

when an install is done using su is there a concern that it will not perform properly?
or are there times when you MUST login for the install as root?

Rundi: so you installed the executables in your home directory? though a tad strange, it doesn't have to be a problem if you include your home directory (containing the executable) in your PATH and give some sane permissions to the files
if possible, definitely login as root (do su in terminal) and to a normal make install to copy the files to the universal bin directory (usually /usr/local/bin)

netkinex: when you install as root, you are simply allowing the program to install into directories that a normal user typically does not have the privilege to modify; if you install this way and the installer installs in a sane place, then there are no concerns
in general, you will always have to login as root to install a program into bin directories, but you can also just run a compiled program from you home directory without every doing "make install" (though you would have to execute the file directly, ie ./home/user/gaim/gaim)

Actually, on further reflection I'm not sure where Opera is installed and I may have actually installed it as root. I am running Mandrake 9.1 and Opera came as an rpm. I may have installed Opera from the Mandrake control center where you must log in as root.

But for Firefox it wasn't an rpm and I most definitely didn't install it as root. I did indeed install it in my home directory and I think that might be the cause of some of my troubles with Firefox. Since I only recently installed it I may just uninstall and reinstall it properly from root.

I feel stupid now, but at the time it seemed logical that if I downloaded the program from my profile I could install it from my profile. Stupid . . . still thinking like the old windows. Ah, well, I'm learning.