From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 10 17:33:24 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1AA47106566B for ; Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:33:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) Received: from mail-ey0-f182.google.com (mail-ey0-f182.google.com [209.85.215.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A16218FC14 for ; Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:33:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: by eyd10 with SMTP id 10so3368365eyd.13 for ; Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:33:22 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=wemm.org; s=google; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=Z/FXshnWWcR9ibMSv8aQ08z7gl7Op3ZjZrIctt6jxgI=; b=jWR7g2gED3ifQ3/LSBCS07E2gAiaxBeGJbE31g4xSFRTEHXNTnAUmw8ZMRoWT1M3Ui bHjFA++AmjGTy+oFiYUq1LaUP2unWnRVHnlE5FXTL79utc5PEZ5dfxg4Zw6tKjRfIkLL 9Z01KUuvAI5/dvBxo5jvjwVoebLGazDVhH4vE= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.68.28.103 with SMTP id a7mr16410163pbh.63.1320946401464; Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:33:21 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.68.50.226 with HTTP; Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:33:21 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <20111110171605.GI2164@hoeg.nl> References: <20111110123919.GF2164@hoeg.nl> <20111110171605.GI2164@hoeg.nl> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:33:21 -0800 Message-ID: From: Peter Wemm To: Ed Schouten Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The strangeness called `sbin' X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:33:24 -0000 On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 9:16 AM, Ed Schouten wrote: > Hi Peter, > > * Peter Wemm , 20111110 17:56: >> Of course, that pales in comparison to the impact of adding >> /usr/local/bin to the path, but it does show this does have potential >> user visibility. =A0And there's also the issue that most most users add >> every possible directory to their $PATH anyway. > > Exactly. Also, there are shells nowadays that cache all binaries in PATH > up front, such as zsh. When they start, they loop through all dirents in > all directories in $PATH and add it to a big cache. This entirely > defeats this purpose. I use tcsh and zsh, I'm aware of this cache. However, libc doesn't, so things like /bin/sh when running shell scripts do not. make(1) does not. People do still care about buildworld time. Simple things like changing gcc to static linking were a few percentage points of buildworld time, back in the day. Having /bin/sh as a static binary used to be 3%-5% of buildworld time, simply because fork/exec was faster as the copy-on-write burden was less. This stuff adds up. > I don't think that there are that many people who don't add /sbin and > /usr/sbin to $PATH nowadays. I have colleagues of mine who use Linux > systems that don't have this in their $PATH. When I ask them whether it > causes problems for them, they deny, but it turns out they simply put > `sudo' in front of it, to work around that, regardless of whether it was > needed. Having /sbin in $PATH where /sbin is a symlink to /bin would be worse than having no /sbin at all, from a perspective of rootvnode lock lifetime. If you can figure out how to get people to remove /sbin and /usr/sbin from their paths after the symlink changes then it becomes a moot point. But heck, I still have /usr/X11R6 in mine... :( --=20 Peter Wemm - peter@wemm.org; peter@FreeBSD.org; peter@yahoo-inc.com; KI6FJV "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5 "If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution." -- Robert Sewell