In Ubuntu we have recently had reports[1] where users were unable to upgrade python packages because they had installed a version of python in /usr/local/bin which did not provide the expected functions. While we worked around this by using the complete path to python in its postinst scripts this is not an ideal solution because this issue certainly does not just affect python. Additionally, the python maintainer in Ubuntu is concerned that this workaround is a violation of the Debian Policy[2] regarding maintainer scripts - "Programs called from maintainer scripts should not normally have a path prepended to them". This issue of having a clean environment for maintainer scripts was previously raised[3] in 2002 and on debian-devel mailing list[4], at that time there was an argument that "the system adminstrator may prefer using a 3rd party version of adduser". While that is true I think the technical savvy of users of dpkg has changed since then and peferring a 3rd party version of a utility is now the less likely case. Subsequently, we could prevent users a lot of pain by providing a clean environment for maintainer scripts. Would it be possible to remove /usr/local/bin from $PATH when package operations are being performed by dpkg? [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python3.5/+bug/1682934 [2] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#introduction-to-package-maintainer-scripts [3] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=18567 [4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/debian-devel-200210/msg00941.html Thanks, -- Brian Murray
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