Incorrect order of /usr/bin and /usr/sbin in path

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 05.05.14 10:35, Kaleb S. KEITHLEY (kkeithle at redhat.com) wrote:

> On 05/05/2014 10:28 AM, Adam Jackson wrote:
> >On Sun, 2014-05-04 at 18:59 +0200, Reindl Harald wrote:
> >
> >>however, the semantics of /usr/sbin is to contain superuser
> >>binaries which should not be overriden because a binary
> >>with the same name exists in /usr/bin
> >
> >My memory is that the "s" was more for "static" not "superuser".
> >There's some conceptual overlap, static binaries being there to recover
> >even if your shared libraries are hosed which is normally a "superuser"
> >kind of operation, but.
> 
> My recollection is that the "s" in /sbin and /usr/sbin was more
> "system" level management. Things an admin would need but would not
> usually be needed by an ordinary user.
> 
> Binaries in /bin and /sbin would have been statically linked to aid
> in recovering a system in single-user mode when /usr might not be
> mounted, in the days when disks were so small that /usr might often
> be a separate disk.

/usr/sbin is an invention of Linux.

The traditional SysV meaning is /sbin for static binaries, and /bin for
and /usr/bin for normal dynamic binaries. Linux then redefine "sbin" as
meaning "system binaries", but that's a concept that really doesn't make
much sense, as you can see for example by Fedora always placing both
/usr/bin and /usr/sbin in the $PATH, and shipping a number of binaries
in both places...

We really should get rid of the destinction, and make all of /bin,
/sbin, /usr/sbin a symlink to /usr/bin, and then never bother again
about $PATH orders and namespace collisions...

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat