On Sun, 15 Aug 2010, Chris Brannon wrote:
Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
In order for that to be correct it needs to also have :/usr/local/bin
inside of the quote marks. The /usr/local/bin directory on Linux
systems like slackware and debian is where stuff gets put that anyone
can execute that's on the system.
I suspect that /usr/local/bin is excluded from the default $PATH to
encourage good system administration habits. I.E., all of the software
installed on a system should be managed by the package manager.
When I used Slackware, /usr/local was the dumping ground where I placed
all of the software that I built from source. It was an uncontrolled
mess. I'm really ashamed to admit it.
Keeping /usr/local/bin out of $PATH discourages people from using
./configure, make, make install as their package "management" procedure.
The hand-written, system-specific scripts pose a problem, though. Does
anyone use makepkg + pacman to manage these? Is it worth the extra
effort?
-- Chris
Production systems probably don't need /usr/local/ hierarchy let alone
paths to it. Development and testing systems would find them very useful
for building foreign tar balls though. Use of standards enables everyone
in a community to sit down at another machine and have a pretty good idea
where things ought to be located and what paths ought to be set. That in
itself can properly be viewed as a security check because when things just
don't look right anymore on a system they may have to be restored from a
backup (script kitties) may have been having fun. As for my own uses, I
put development systems up because when new packages become available
they're not always available for the particular Linux in use and I want to
find out can these work and what needs to be done to get them working.
