Re: PATH: /usr/local before or after /usr ?

On Fri, 2021-07-16 at 09:01 -0600, Alan Somers wrote:
> FreeBSD has always placed /usr/local/X after /usr/X in the default PATH.
> AFAICT that convention began with SVN revision 37 "Initial import of 386BSD
> 0.1 othersrc/etc".  Why is that?  It would make sense to me that
> /usr/local/X should come first.  That way programs installed from ports can
> override FreeBSD's defaults.  Is there a good reason for this convention,
> or is it just inertia?
> -Alan

I have a hierarchy on my machines rooted at /local and /local/bin is
before /bin and /usr/bin in my PATH, so I can override system tools
when I explicitly want to without suffering any problems of an
unexpected override from installing a port or package.

If you're using ports as a development environment to work on a new
gstat replacement, you could do something similar and put PREFIX=/local
in your port makefile while you're developing on it.

-- Ian