Re: Bug#312669: /sbin/ifconfig: Add ifconfig to user path
On 13 Jun 2005 10:11:52 +0100, Richard Kettlewell <rjk@terraraq.org.uk> wrote:
> Miles Bader <miles@lsi.nec.co.jp> writes:
> > astronut <astronut@gmail.com> writes:
> > 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.
Probably because there's no solid reason against a symlink.
> 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.
I guess in situations where /sbin is available but /bin isn't (for
whatever reason).
> 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.
On my system, if* matches only if as non-root user.
I doubt namespace 'pollution' is an issue.
> 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/
>
>
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