Re: Hurd FS hierarchy (was Re: LD_LIBRARY_PATH troubles)

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

Andreas Voegele <voegelas@users.sourceforge.net> writes:

> > It is for programs which are "only generally useful to system
> > administrators".
> 
> Who decides what is only useful to system administrators?

Generally, the particular GNU maintainer.

> Only Solaris systems, ping is in /usr/sbin.  On Debian, it is in /bin.
> On the other hand, traceroute is in /usr/sbin.  I can't see much
> difference between ping and traceroute as far as the usefulness for
> users is concerned.

In my opinion, both should not be in sbin, unless on those particular
systems they require special privilege.  For Debian, that means, in my
opinion, traceroute should be moved.

> But programs should not be left in /sbin for historical reasons.

Well, some scripts *do* refer to things by absolute path, so if they
are moved, then a symlink does not to be retained.

> And programs that are only useful to system administrators on
> GNU/Linux systems should be moved from /sbin to /bin if they are
> useful to normal users on the Hurd.

Note that the phrase is "only generally useful".  Something which
might, once on a rare occasion, be useful to a non-system
administrator, would still meet that test.

Note also that the determination is *not* whether it requires special
privileges (though obviously programs that require special priveleges
would generally belong in /sbin).

Thomas