On 2005-08-22 03:10, "Gary W. Swearingen" <garys@opusnet.com> wrote:
>Dejan Lesjak <dejan.lesjak@ijs.si> writes:
>> I could still argue though that changing PATH is as advanced as
>> changing MANPATH, but it doesn't feel [...]
>
> It sounds like Giorgos is arguing the same way, so you outvote me.
>
> But don't you HAVE to change the default path after installing X11?
Not really. The default PATH (as set in /etc/login.conf) already
includes /usr/X11R6/bin :-)
> I sure hope the ports system isn't messin' with my "profile".
That would be awful.
> And where do we learn to put more-custom directories at the end of
> PATH instead of the beginning (where I think they belong)?
Nowhere, I guess. It's one of those things that you have to apply
Common Sense(TM) to. For instance, on my Solaris workstation at work,
where I really *MUST* use a local version of autoconf, automake and
libtool (from /opt/autotools) and not the one that is part of the Sun
Freeware collection (from /usr/sfw), I really *do* want /opt/autotools
to be near the beginning of the PATH. That's something I found out by
experimenting with various setups though.
> The several examples of PATH setting in the Handbook show both
> theories (even within the same PATH), with mine favored, including:
> PATH=/usr/X11R6/bin:$PATH;
>
> (One theory is that more-custom directories should override less-custom
> ones so you can easily "replace" their programs; the other theory is
> that doing so makes it too easy to get unexpected custom behavior from
> less-custom programs.)
Unexpected behavior is, well, "unexpected" and should be avoided if
possible. IMHO, it's rarely a good idea to prepend custom PATH entries
that may happen to "shadow" some of the utilities of the standard path.
What happens if you prepend /opt/foo to the default path that includes
an "sh" binary that is an interpreter for language Foobar instead of a
/bin/sh replacement and then you accidentally type "sh hello.sh"? :-)
>> But then again if you change PATH so X11 stuff is first perhaps it is
>> expected to also get manpages for X11 first?
>
> Yes, but it's not expected (by me) to be so hard to display both
> manpages.
>
> But this will only waste a small amount of time for a small fraction
> of FreeBSD users, so it's no big deal. Suspend or close the PR.
Thanks.
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