Re: /etc/alternatives feedback for presentation

[Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org>]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 10:31:02AM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> On Mon 13 Aug 2018 at 09:08:28 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > The other alternatives are:
> > 
> > 1) Stay on stretch.
> > 2) Edit /etc/login.defs to restore a functional su command (without needing
> >    to use "su -").
> > 3) Put /usr/sbin and /sbin in your ordinary account's PATH.

> Why is
> 
>  Put some "qualify-of-life environment variables" into /root/.bashrc
> 
> not in your list?

I guess that would work, but I see some flaws:

 a) Every time you change an environment variable in your personal
    account, you'll need to remember to make the same change in root's
    account.

 b) What if other people also have root access to this system and don't
    want your personal variables?

 c) If you need to make a change on every machine as root to fix the
    behavior, why not just change /etc/login.defs instead?

 d) Especially if your home directory is shared across many systems.
    Changing it just once in your home directory is better than having
    to change every single system you log into.

Still, feel free to come up with your own alternatives to make things
work.  You might find some more ideas that I overlooked.