I believe the reason netslect needs to run as root is due to the fact that it uses raw sockets (sends an UDP probe, waits for an ICMP reply). That is a capability reserved for the root user (or a user with the CAP_NET_RAW capability).
Netselect could run as a regular-user in GNU/Linux systems if granted that capability (a good walkthrough on how to this is http://www.friedhoff.org/posixfilecapsold.html). Just run: sudo chmod 711 /usr/bin/netselect sudo setcap cap_net_raw=ep/ usr/bin/netselect Regards Javier -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org