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Re: option to favor GNU tools instead of SunOS binaries?



On 06/07/2015 at 08:18 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:

> On my school's SunOS there are a lot of tools that
> sound the same but aren't exactly the same as the GNU
> tools that I'm accustomed with from Debian. This is
> confusing and error-prone.
> 
> For example
> 
>     du
> 
> isn't GNU du(1) but a binary on the SunOS system:
> 
>     /usr/bin/du
> 
> and there is also
> 
>     /usr/ucb/du
> 
> However, GNU du *is* installed, in
> 
>     /it/sw/gnutools/bin/du
> 
> And this is the same for so many tools: ls, grep, ...
> 
> So the question is: how can I make the GNU toolchain
> the favored alternative when there are several
> executables? Without setting aliases one by one... (I
> use zsh.)

Modify your shell config file to prepend /it/sw/gnutools/bin/ to PATH,
then launch a new instance of the shell.

I don't know the filename or appropriate syntax for that file for zsh,
but with bash it would be ~/.bashrc (or /etc/profile, or any file
invoked from either) and

PATH=/it/sq/gnutools/bin:"$PATH"

and it's exceedingly unlikely that zsh doesn't have comparable
functionality, even if with different syntax. (Actually, I think the
functionality may be specified by POSIX, though I can't swear to that
without research.)

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

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