The strangeness called `sbin'

[Ed Schouten]

* Doug Barton <dougb at FreeBSD.org>, 20111113 00:23:
> Except for the hash tools (md5, etc.) those are all properly located in
> sbin.

So this is where the sbin <-> bin separation already causes troubles.
Even in a discussion between two people it is impossible to determine in
which of the directories it should be placed.

I think John Doe would agree a compiler suite is something more
`administrative' than an application to send emails, yet they are placed
in bin and sbin respectively.

This is actually one of the reasons why I proposed the merge. The
separation between /bin and /usr/bin is easy to reason about: if the
system boots fine without it being placed in /bin, just put it in
/usr/bin. This does not hold for bin and sbin.

> >> For those individual tools, yes. But you're discounting the collateral
> >> damage.
> > 
> > Being?
> 
> User confusion, conflict between how things are done in the base vs. how
> they are done in ports, problems for users who install stuff in /sbin
> and/or /usr/sbin, and the other problems that have been mentioned in
> this thread.

This is not a problem, because of the symbolic links we add. If people
install stuff in /sbin, it gets placed in /bin. About the user
confusion, all the directories they need are added to $PATH. Also, if
they ls(1) around a bit, they'll figure it out.

> > Unrelated to that, `make installworld' already deletes existing files
> > from the DESTDIR:
> > 
> > - /.profile
> > - /.cshrc
> 
> Do you have a reference? I had to add code to mergemaster to handle
> installing updates to them, fixing the symlinks, etc.
> 
> > - /sys
> 
> Are you sure that this happens on an already installed system? I know
> I've had to update this link on systems where I've moved my src tree.
> 
> > - Some man/nls-related files.
> 
> Not sure about these.

This is all done in etc/Makefile. You can also try it yourself:

	rm /sys
	echo hello world > /sys
	make installworld

-- 
 Ed Schouten <ed at 80386.nl>
 WWW: http://80386.nl/
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