Re: /etc/profile should include sbin in PATH

[Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu>]

Ben Gertzfield <che@debian.org> writes:

> There are undoubtedly more examples, but I know traceroute is The
> Biggy. It's a major tool that users run all the time, and there's no
> reason for it to be in /usr/sbin.

I can't think of one good reason for, for example, ifconfig not to be
available through /bin, other than precedent, and that seems like a
silly reason.  I'd say, add a symlink and be done with it, but I'm
sure that others would (will) oppose this.

As I recall, the hurd does away with the "separate directories"
nonsense altogether.  No /usr/games, /usr/X????/bin, /etc, /bin,
/sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/sbin, /usr/local/bin, just
plain old, simple /bin.  Of course I think they probably have a much
fancier understructure to support this (like mergable directories or
similar).

I don't like the "hide stuff in /sbin" strategy.  Since we still have
to make sure that the flat "path namespace" has no conflicts, it's not
like having the separate directory really buys you anything.

On our departmental machines, they put *ping* in the admin directories
because they thought normal users shouldn't be running it.  According
to the arguments of some in this debate, Debian should do the same
thing.

-- 
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> PGP=E80E0D04F521A094 532B97F5D64E3930