Re: Who is a Debian user?
yes, it is traditional. they are in those locations because they've
always been there. even more importantly, many scripts expect them to be
in those locations and call them by absolute path - if they were to be
moved, then those scripts would break.
Yes but there are also simple ways to avoid this
that's why i can't understand why you're complaining about this as
if it's a problem specific to debian - those programs are in those
locations on just about any linux distribution, indeed, on just about
any unix.
No, I understand that it is not a problem specific to Debian. If it works
the same way on AIX or Solaris or Suse or whatever, my opinion would be the
same. But I bring it up here since I like a lot with Debian and it is a
community effort.
now, rather than go into some long-winded and misguided complaint about
what kind of users debian caters for, why not just file a wishlist bug
report asking for the sbin directories to be in the default path?
Because a wish is just an opinion, and I can't say that my opinion matters
more than yours. But, if there were consensus that Debian targeted a
specific kind of user, then I could say: look, it benefits our target user
if it is done this way instead.
instead, you're going off on an irrelevant tangent which gets no support
at all. that achieves nothing but wasting your time and our time.
I did not expect that many people did not care about a definition of who
Debian is for. It surprises me. But some people seem to understand my
thinking.
no, that's not the case. the fact is that we know better than novice
users about what constitutes good system design. sometimes that means
we do things in a way or for reasons which novice users don't (yet)
understand. you might think that's a patronising attitude (and maybe it
is) - but would you want to run an OS designed by people who had never
even used it before?
I am confident that Debian is designed by many very brilliant developers. I
use it and many parts of it works well.
most debian developers don't see this as any kind of a bug which needs
fixing, most of us see it as (at worst) a user-education problem. the
best thing to do is to document things and teach users what and why.
that documentation does exist - all the user has to do is read it.
The case with ifconfig/traceroute is quite simple to fix, I admit. I brought
it up because I think it illustrates my point.
> The user is rather expected to RTFM. But even if you are a very
> intelligent user, RTMF takes time, and when you have to do it a lot,
> it adds up.
an operating system is an inherently complex thing. the user will always
be expected to RTFM and be willing to learn.
If you argue that every Debian user should know the concept of the path, and
how to modify it, I think you are right. But if you mean that every user
should know were common binaries resides, and which package they belong to I
do not agree with you.
if you need to run those programs, then learn how to do so.
your complaint is sounding like "i need to use vi, but it's too hard.
that's a bug in vi, it should work like pico".
No it is not. It is more like if I want to use vi, but couldn't because it
only could be started as vim.
it *would* tell you if only you bothered to ask the right question. i.e.
"/sbin/ifconfig" rather than just "ifconfig"
Yes, that is exactly my point.
Claes.
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