Bug#1051371: Post-/usr-merge paths for script interpreters
On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 08:48:04PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Control: retitle -1 Post-/usr-merge paths for script interpreters
>
> Simon pointed out that this bug is not yet ready to act on, which was very
> helpful. Thank you. However, presumably the buildds will be /usr-merged
> at some point in the not-too-distant future, and we do need to decide what
> to do after that point.
>
> I think the root problem behind this bug is that it is revealing we have
> not made a decision about /bin and /usr/bin path references in Debian
> after /usr-merge. Various people, myself included, made assumptions about
> what the policy would be, but we never actually decided anything that I am
> aware of and people's assumptions are not matching. I think we need to
> talk about this directly, after which what to do with this bug will
> probably become obvious.
Russ, there is a quite related point I do not think the TC addressed directly,
but I can easily be mistaken: the default PATH.
It is currently defined in /etc/login.defs (unless my copy of this file is out of date):
as
ENV_SUPATH PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
ENV_PATH PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
so in pratice, tools like 'which' will always favor /usr/bin over /bin
$ which sh
/usr/bin/sh
One of the issue in the past is that reproducible build was broken because different
build environment lead to different paths. We at least need to address that.
Personnally, I favor keeping /bin/sh for consistency, but that is aside.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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