On 15 Apr 2010, at 07:48, EBo wrote:
what I had meant is simply that when a user tries to run a program
which has
been installed system wide it should simply work.
A good goal, but I'm not sure an environment variable is a good way to
achieve it. At the very least it means, in a typical Linux
distribution, an additional file in each of /etc/profile.d, /etc/
zprofile.d, /etc/cshlogin.d (or whatever they call it) and etc. for
each shell the user might possibly want.
Then there's the matter of users who commit the heinous crime of
preferring a display manager over startx, which raises questions over
when where or even _if_ system-wide environment variables will be set
at all. Display managers are still the truculent beasts they were 10
years ago.
Then too there's the possibility that some poor [l]user will get the
notion that the environment variable is the right way to set the
parameter, and get in a muddle when half his open xterms (that he's
had open for the past month) still have the old setting. Better to let
him write a script, at least he can stick it in ~/bin. (Yes, it
happened to me, more than once, and rather converted me to wrapper
scripts.)
If some distro wants to stick a default 9vx tree in some _really_
weird place, let them patch the source!
--
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. -- Alan Perlis
