Re: env (GNU coreutils) 5.93 patch

[Bob Proulx]

Theodoros V. Kalamatianos wrote:
> Personally, whenever I package coreutils for my system I prefer to move 
> several basic utilities (env included) to /bin and symlink them from 
> /usr/bin. That way I am safer should I ever have /bin and /usr in separate 
> partitions, and I am still compatible with scripts that use hardcoded 
> paths.

The FHS proscribes a number of binaries that must be in /bin.  And a
few that must be in /usr/bin.

  http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#BINESSENTIALUSERCOMMANDBINARIES
  http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRBINMOSTUSERCOMMANDS

The 'env' command is not in the list and is not required to be in any
particular location by the FHS.  However many other commands are in
the list and for general compatibility should be in the listed
locations.  As you note moving binaries into one location or another
when installing onto a system is really a packaging issue.

> I believe, though, that in the spirit of at least the FHS /bin/env is a 
> very reasonable location, since there could be system/backup scripts that 
> use it and are necessary to restore the system in the case of a disaster.

I think that is okay.  Then system scripts could use /bin/env even
before /usr/bin was available.  However it could lead someone to
create general non-system scripts on that system that use #!/bin/env
and then those scripts would work there an no where else.

Also in that case I would create a symlink from /usr/bin/env to
../bin/env to allow scripts using #!/usr/bin/env to function without
modification because there are a lot of them.

> But all this is more of a packaging issue. I don't think it should be 
> resolved in the coreutils source distribution. Different distributions and 
> platforms may use different locations, and it would be impossible to 
> accomodate them all.

Agreed.

Bob