[ Please don't Cc: public replies to me. ] Raul Miller: > Primary reason is to enable software contained in a package. Cannonical > example is to make sure path includes path needed by package in the > set of directories checked for user executables. Er, no, I think that is an extremely good example of what should not go into /etc/profile.d. Packages should not rely on a non-standard magic environment variable to work properly. If they need binaries from outside the normal directories (/bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin) they should reference them explicitly, because otherwise they will break if the PATH is modified. For example, inn installs commands into /usr/lib/news/bin, but that directory should _not_ go into the path, not even for root. Those parts of inn that reference these binaries, do it via a direct path (or else they make sure they add the directory to PATH). Another example is MH, which puts its commands into /usr/bin/mh. That directly also shouldn't be added automatically to PATH, since users shouldn't get MH commands by mistake. If MH commands are meant for all users, then they should be installed in /usr/bin. -- Please read <http://www.iki.fi/liw/mail-to-lasu.html> before mailing me. Please don't Cc: me when replying to my message on a mailing list.
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