Simple HowTo

[Les]

On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 22:50 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 23:53 -0500, Ric Moore wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 09:27 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> > > Ric Moore wrote:
> 
> > > > Me too. /opt appears to be not used at all. Packages like OO used to
> > > > live there, and /usr/bin is REALLY crowded nowadays since the use
> > > > of /usr/X11/bin got canceled. I'm wondering too. Ric
> > > ----
> > > /opt is where vendor packages are normally installed, generally, but not 
> > > always commercial packages, i.e. BrightStor ArcServe will install there, 
> > > also, Dell's OMSA and the rpms you download from OpenOffice.org
> > > 
> > > The growth of the number of files in /usr/bin is a testimony to the vast 
> > > array of software available for Fedora.
> > 
> > I agree, there's a ton of stuff and I'm not complaining about that,
> > nosiree. My comment is that the one directory looks just a little bit
> > full. At least with /usr/X11R6/bin it reduced the amount of traffic
> > in /usr/bin. If only there was a way to divvy up /usr/bin into standard
> > subsets, that everyone could agree on, such
> > as /usr/multimedia/bin, /usr/games/bin and so forth. It's a thought. Nor
> > would it be a huge deal to do. Ric
> ----
> ignoring of course, the whole point of the FHS itself which sadly,
> doesn't exist to satisfy Ric Moore's or Gene Poole's sense of the way
> things should be but rather be an entirely predictable point to put
> "Binaries that are not needed in single-user mode"
> 
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/fhs-4.5.html
> 
> as for /usr/X11R6 et al...
> 
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/fhs-4.4.html
> 
> and while we're at it... /opt
> 
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/fhs-3.12.html
> 
> and finally, the explanation for the OP who doesn't want to live
> in /usr/local...
> 
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/fhs-4.9.html
> 
> The one thing that appears obvious to me is that the big picture was
> created by people with insights into the OS far greater than I possess
> so I am more than willing to go along with their plan.
> 
> Craig
> 
Note that the PATH environment variable determines the locations
searched and the order in which they are searched.  The last location
should be /usr/bin.  Care should be exercised in setting up applications
such that the path and file name choices within the path sequence do not
mask system operation programs.  For instance if there is a system
command say "sed" for example, but you create a program or script and
call it "sed", then place it in the path before /usr/bin, the result
will be that you will execute the "sed" script rather than the system
command.  Not only will this affect direct "sed" commands, but it will
also cause scripts calling "sed" to malfunction when that script is in
the path before the "sed" program.

	I know that quotes are not necessary, but I put them there to emphasize
the name of the command and script to trigger your eyes to check it out.

	One other issue is the users who place their directory or one that they
have write access to in the path.  This is a security issue.  If you
then inadvertantly run a virus script, it can generate the executable in
your local executable directory.  Then just one instance of exercising
that directory as root or via suedo, and you have problems.  As a
developer, I have used a local "bin" directory to check out scripts.  I
generatlly make it under root, and executable as group and world, but
not root.  Then I can put trials in it amd work with them (this was on
solaris, so I suspect it will also work on Linux, but I haven't tried
it).  Just be careful.

Regards,
Les H