[arch-general] /etc/profile PATH variable wrong

[Jude DaShiell]

On Sun, 15 Aug 2010, Chris Brannon wrote:

> Jude DaShiell <jdashiel at shellworld.net> 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.