Bug#322002: tetex-bin relies on specific PATH
Marc Lehmann <debian-reportbug@plan9.de> wrote:
> Package: tetex-bin
> Version: 3.0-5
> Severity: normal
>
>
> During update, I get:
>
> update-fmtutil has updated '/var/lib/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf'. If you want to enable
> the new formats, you should run fmtutil (with option --all
> or --missing)
> Running fmtutil-sys. This may take some time. ...
> aleph: invalid option -- i
> usage: rsh [-nd] [-l login] host [command]
> Error: `aleph -ini -jobname=aleph -progname=aleph *aleph.ini' failed
> Error: `tex -ini -jobname=xmltex -progname=xmltex &latex xmltex.ini' failed
>
> Turned out I had a link form rsh to aleph in my path, so it tried to call
> my own aleph program.
>
> The obvious fix would be to either set the PATH or specify the full path
> of the program.
Which would kind of break the sense of a PATH variable: You would no
longer be able to use a customized aleph by providing the binary
somewhere earlier in your path.
You don't expect your XWindow system to work if you have a "xinit"
program in your path that does something completely different?
FWIW, the policy explicitly recommends _not_ to prepend a specific path
before the names of the binaries:
,----
| 6.1. Introduction to package maintainer scripts
| -----------------------------------------------
| [...]
|
| Programs called from maintainer scripts should not normally have a
| path prepended to them. Before installation is started, the package
| management system checks to see if the programs `ldconfig',
| `start-stop-daemon', `install-info', and `update-rc.d' can be found
| via the `PATH' environment variable. Those programs, and any other
| program that one would expect to be on the `PATH', should thus be
| invoked without an absolute pathname. Maintainer scripts should also
| not reset the `PATH', though they might choose to modify it by
| prepending or appending package-specific directories. These
| considerations really apply to all shell scripts.
`----
In my opinion, this is not a bug.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
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