Nikhil wrote:
> I believe all of them putting under /usr/gnu/{lib,bin,include} whatever
> specific to gnu under /usr/gnu as prefix directory would be better.
>
Do you have a reason?
My reason for preferring /usr/bin unless there's a name conflict is
simply this : if users cannot readily find a command, they implicitly
assume it isn't available. There is basically no benefit obtained from
"hiding" commands in strange places around the system; once a user
discovers he needs /usr/wombat/bin once in his path, he adds it - and
any benefit obtained from sequestering commands there is immediately
obviated.
Since there's no useful benefit, why put users through this at all?
In Solaris for years, we placed commands that were subject to change
outside of Sun's control in /usr/sfw/bin. This led to such absurdities
as having a menu item on the Solaris desktop to launch Mozilla,
but having mozilla not be found when invoked from a shell with
the default path - and all of this ostensibly to protect the user!
We could add more and more directories to the default path, ala SUSE.
This seems somewhat broken, and is now problematic with so many users
already explicitly setting their paths rather than appending to the
one they inherit from their login shell.
Note that executables not normally used from the command line (Xorg,
for example) should _not_ appear in the default path.
- Bart
--
Bart Smaalders Solaris Kernel Performance
barts at cyber.eng.sun.com http://blogs.sun.com/barts
