Re: [vulture@aoi.dyndns.org: Bug#100744: Binary should be in /usr/bin, since it's useful to non-admins.]
On Thu, 14 Jun 2001, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Steve Langasek wrote:
> > Not stepping into the actual flamewar here, but 'mount' is already in the
> > default user path (/bin/mount), and therefore does not support the argument
> > that traceroute should remain in /usr/sbin.
> mount is useful for the average newbie user since he can use it to
> mount floppies, cdroms, etc. The average newbie user has no use
> for traceroute at all, it is a diagnostic tool networks, not a general
> user thing.
Respectfully, the last time I checked it the word 'newbie' didn't appear
anywhere within the text of the FHS. Looking in /usr/bin I can find lots of
tools which I don't think would be useful to newbies; at the same time, I
expect a lot of veteran /users/ (not admins) would be annoyed to have these
tools disappear into the depths of /usr/sbin.
You are correct that traceroute is a diagnostic network tool, but that does
not mean it's only useful to administrators of the /local/ system. I usually
find traceroute most useful for identifying remote network difficulties that
neither I nor any local sysadmin has control over. So as a user, the
placement of traceroute in /usr/sbin does seem rather arbitrary to me.
But I'm not going to get pulled into an argument of where traceroute /should/
be. It is where it is, and short of filing an RC bug (and making it stick),
there's nothing anyone else can do to make the maintainer move it if he
doesn't want to.
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
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