Installing as root vs installing with sudo

Is there a difference in outcome or application behaviour by installing packages with

sudo -i
apt install something

versus

sudo apt install something

2 Answers

If you're talking solely about using the apt command, the two invocations are identical. Other commands that may depend on environment variables and such could potentially act differently.

Is there a difference in outcome or application behaviour by installing packages with

No, but that is not what "sudo" is about.

1 of the key features of "sudo" is the ability to track and trace directly who issued the command. Where "sudo" logs it as the user that issued it. Doing it from "root" will log it as "root.

Not an issue for a single admin system but a serious problem when there is more than one admin on a system and a command was issued that was not supposed to be issued.