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

[Derek Broughton]

Fergal Daly wrote:

> 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.

No, because none of the Ubuntu packages should rely on anything
in /usr/local - that's for _your_ use.  I don't put much in /usr/local, but
it's certainly not redundant (right now, for sure, I have maven - which
isn't in Ubuntu).
> 
> 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.

And if they have their own paths, they should work - presumably they know
what they're doing.

>> 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 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? 

Yes, they should.

> 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,

File a bug in launchpad.
-- 
derek