$PATH in Solaris
It's always the little things about new Unix systems that get to me.
Take $PATH
on Solaris.
On a modern Linux distribution with a stock install, a sysadmin's full $PATH needs only five directories:
/bin /usr/bin /sbin /usr/sbin /usr/X11R6/bin
(Sometimes /usr/bin/X11
is used instead of /usr/X11R6/bin
.)
On Solaris 9, my $PATH is (so far):
/usr/bin /bin /usr/sbin /sbin /usr/ccs/bin /opt/sfw/bin /usr/openwin/bin /usr/sfw/bin
Why are all of these necessary? Well,
/usr/ccs/bin
is where Solaris hidesmake
(andm4
)./usr/openwin/bin
is where all the X programs live./usr/sfw/bin
haswget
./opt/sfw/bin
has all the useful freeware programs, likersync
,python
,lynx
, and a diff that understands-u
.
If I want to do anything with Sun's dt* tools, I need to
add /usr/dt/bin
. If I fiddled much with Java, I'd want to add
/usr/java/bin
.
Personally, I think that this is the sign of immature package management tools in Solaris 9. Not needing a pile of entries in $PATH is much easier for users, and decent package management tools make it no more difficult for the system administrator to manage.
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