Re: Change default PATH for Jessie / wheezy+1
On 08/09/2012 06:14 PM, Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez wrote:
> I am aware of the shortcomings of ifconfig. However it is still a nice
> and valid tool to just show the ip address the DHCP server assigned to a
> machine (AFAIK DHCP servers only assign one IP address per interface)
>
With all the due respect, only considering this one use case (eg: when using
dhcp and you need to know the IP address) is a quite short sighted view.
> Also ip is only available for Linux kernels, but ifconfig is available
> on any *nix.
ifconfig has a different output depending on the *nix (eg: formatting is
different IIRC). Saying it's the same thing isn't fully right.
> Furthermore the output formatting of ifconfig is more user
> friendly than the one of ip.
>
A tool which potentially hides part of the information (eg: other IPs
that may
have been assigned to an interface, link status, type of scheduling, etc.)
can't be called more user friendly. At the maximum, you can tell that you
like it better and know it better, but that's probably it.
When we are talking about IPv4, then it's probably right to tell that having
multiple IPs on a single interface isn't a very common setup. But for IPv6,
that's another story! It's very common to setup more than one IP per iface
with IPv6. And yes, we should consider IPv6 as important.
> After reading the thread, I think that probably the better idea is to:
>
> * Fix #312669
>
Yes. But we shouldn't mix #312669 with the title of the thread, both
issues should be addressed totally separately, and #312669 shouldn't
be used as an excuse to mess everything. Same for all other utilities
that might have been wrongly put in sbin.
> * Add /sbin:/usr/sbin to the PATH of the first user (uid 1000)
> Since on single-user machines (laptops/PCs) I think is a valid
> assumption to think that the (probably) unique user of the machine
> is also the administrator of that machine. So he will probably
> find useful to have the administrative commands on his path.
> Also on multi-user machines (servers) the first user installed is
> probably the user the sysadmin will use for himself.
>
What you are proposing here is a hack based on dangerous assumptions.
Why can't you customize your own computer $PATH for your user, if
you feel this way?
Also, I quite not understand why ifconfig is so important in the eyes
of many participant to this thread, when there's an alternative, when
other tools without other implementation would deserve much more
attention. Others have already listed few tools, but here's my own
list too:
- tc (to be used with /sbin/tc qdisc show for example)
- All partitioning / formatting utilities (mkfs, resize2fs, etc.)
But that's about it. Why not trying to fix those instead?
Cheers,
Thomas
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