/usr/local/bin in $PATH in system scripts?

Fergal Daly fergal at esatclear.ie
Sun Apr 15 18:32:16 UTC 2007


On 15/04/07, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> Fergal Daly wrote:
>
> > I'm looking for clarification of policy in the context of this bug
> >
> > https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-system-tools/+bug/71336
> >
> > and the fact that having your own version of Perl in /usr/local will
> > almost certainly break your Ubuntu admin tools.
>
> Well, perl should normally be in /usr/bin, so as long as /usr/local/bin is
> after /usr/bin, there shouldn't be a problem.

Well, I agree that if it must be there it should be after /usr/bin
however if you've installed all dependencies then everything should be
found in /usr/bin so the /usr/local/bin would be redundant.

Either way,

find /etc/ -type f|xargs grep "PATH=.*/usr/local/bin.*/usr/bin"

turns up 21 files in /etc that put /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin.

> > I have always assumed that it was safe to put whatever I like in
> > /usr/local/ and my system will continue to work. This seems to be
> > backed up by Debian policy
> >
> > http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html#s-sysvinit
> >
> > which contains this paragraph
> >
> > "However, because /usr/local and its contents are for exclusive use of
> > the local administrator, a package must not rely on the presence or
> > absence of files or directories in /usr/local for normal operation."
>
> Well, that's Debian policy, not ubuntu's, but I would think even Debian
> policy collapses there if files in /usr/local are in the path and come
> before policy-required files.

I was under the impression that Ubuntu, as a Debian derivative, would
follow Debian policy but that is just an assumption on my part.

I don't really know what you mean by the "policy collapses". Do you
agree that the system tools should continue to work no matter what I
put in /usr/local? If so, what should I do to convince the maintainer
of gnome-system-tools (and possibly many others) to change the PATH=
line in their script (note, I cannot post to ubuntu-devel as only
official developers can post there). Thanks,

F

> --
> derek
>
>
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