Re: /etc/profile should include sbin in PATH
On Fri, Dec 24, 1999 at 06:16:36PM -0500, Greg Stark wrote:
>
> tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:
>
> > The GNU project adopted /sbin because ordinary users should not be
> > burdened with executables that they *cannot* run usefully. (Which is
> > in fact the same reason that they are in /etc or /sbin in BSD.)
>
> I would be somewhat happier if that were the language in the FHS or Debian
> policy. However, there are many programs in sbin that are useful for ordinary
> users including the two explicitly listed in the FSSTND, traceroute and
> ifconfig.
Ideally, they possibly shouldn't be. Why is traceroute in /sbin
anyway? It's automatically setuid - doesn't this make putting it in
/sbin pointless?
> I personally don't buy this logic at all for two reasons:
>
> 1) Nobody has been able to explain why these programs are a "burden"
There's no point in having programs like shutdown, fdisk etc. in
the users' path, and having them there could irritate in, for
exanple, tab completion.
> I guess I propose that either of two things happen:
>
> 1) /sbin and /usr/sbin are put into everyone's path.
Is there any other immediate solution?
[snip]
> or there's a third solution
>
> 3) abolish /sbin and /usr/sbin and put these binaries in /bin and /usr/sbin.
> Make symlinks so scripts still work.
This is kind of ugly.
> Obviously the path of least resistance at least for potato is (1).
But it's not a good long-term solution, as it makes /sbin
pointless. Right?
--
alisdair mcdiarmid alisdair@wasters.org
[burnt toast is what comes of trying to do too many things at once]
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