Re: Bug#312669: /sbin/ifconfig: Add ifconfig to user path

[Richard Kettlewell <rjk@terraraq.org.uk>]

Miles Bader <miles@lsi.nec.co.jp> writes:
> astronut <astronut@gmail.com> writes:

>> I agree. The type of user who is likely to be using the ifconfig
>> command on a regular basis is the type of user who probably already
>> has sbin in their path. (Power user, sysadmin's nonprivleged
>> account, etc.).
> 
> Yes.  The great majority of users don't want to know about stuff
> like ifconfig, and those that _do_ can either put /sbin in their
> path themselves or just type the damn path when they run the
> command.
> 
> I've no clue why some people whine so much about this.

It causes (at least) two types of trivial irritation:
 1) on each new system I have to add sbin to my path, usually at the
    point where I'm involved in the already irritating exercise of
    debugging a network problem
 2) when helping someone out, if you ask them to report what
    'ifconfig' says then the answer is:
      -bash: ifconfig: command not found

If there was a clear benefit to having ifconfig in sbin then these
might be less annoying.  But I've yet to hear of one.

There is a small benefit to having a separate sbin at all, in that it
takes a few things out of the namespace for tab completion.
Personally I don't think that outweighs the inconvenience of people
wrongly putting commands like ifconfig and (historically) traceroute
in it.

-- 
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/