----- Original Message ----- From: "Randall R Schulz" To: Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:33 PM Subject: Re: [opensuse] Re: 11.0 & PATH variable

On Thursday 03 July 2008 20:09, Chuck Davis wrote:

...

Has anyone discovered a way to get around the stubborn insistence of 11.0 to require /usr/bin as the first entry on the PATH variable. ...

Stubbornness and insistence are characteristics of human beings alone, not of computers or their software...

...

Any help will be appreciated.

By the way, I'm talking about defining the PATH in profile.local -- no longer works.

Individuals control PATH and other environment variables by establishing or modifying them in their ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile files. See the "INVOCATION" section of the BASH manual for details.

System-wide defaults for shells are established in /etc/profile. Other application-specific defaults are established by files in "/etc/profile.d/".

What? Telling someone that they don't actually need to be using profile.local when you don't even know what they're doing or why, is not an acceptable answer to a complaint that profile.local has changed it's behaviour in a way that breaks reasonable expectations based on both basic knowledge and past behavior. /etc/profile is a system file that is subject to replacement or overwriting by updates and smart people don't customize it if avoidable. I use it myself as a key part of every install and I assure you I do want to do what I'm doing exactly there and nowhere else. I could get the job done some other way if forced, but this is already ideal so anything else is a downgrade. However, I can not reproduce the claimed breakage anyways. I have for years and years been doing this: /etc/profile sources /etc/profile.local (I add a line at the end for other OS's that don't already have something like this built in. that is "customizing profile, but so minimally, simply, and consistently that it could even be safely automated) /etc/profile.local sets a very few truly box-specific things that can't be automagically determined somehow, then ends in ". /path/to/profile.aljex" profile.aljex has about 2k of stuff thats not only system-wide but common to all boxes everywhere, but the top few lines relevent here are: ----snip---- [ -n "$PROFILE_ALJEX" ] && return || PROFILE_ALJEX=1 export PROFILE_ALJEX PATH TERM PFTERM SRVIP AMILOCAL LESS LESSSECURE \ TTY tty MYTERM BRKY HELPIP PFPT PFPRTC LANADDR WANADDR GMAPKEY DEFFAXSYS PATH=${PATH}:/u/appl/fp:/u/aljex/bin:/u/aljex/start [ -e /etc/vsifax.sh ] && . /etc/vsifax.sh ########## no commands that need a tty before this point ########## tty -s || return ----snip---- I only show all that just to remove any mystery about what happens & what doesn't happen. So now, logging in as a user, normlly: (this is a 11.0 box) bkw@kaboom:~> echo $PATH /home/bkw/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/mit/bin:/usr/lib/mit/sbin:/u/appl/fp:/u/aljex/bin:/u/aljex/start:/usr/lib/vsifax/bin bkw@kaboom:~> So, I'm only appending to PATH normally and that works the same as always. But the complaint was specifically about prepending. So, when I change the path statement in profile.aljex to prepend /u/foo PATH=/u/foo:${PATH}:/u/appl/fp:/u/aljex/bin:/u/aljex/start bkw@kaboom:~> echo $PATH /u/foo:/home/bkw/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/mit/bin:/usr/lib/mit/sbin:/u/appl/fp:/u/aljex/bin:/u/aljex/start:/usr/lib/vsifax/bin bkw@kaboom:~> Same results for root too. So, as far as I can see, there is nothing wrong with profile.local or PATH on opensuse 11.0 Note: These are headless servers with no X. I have seen the various gui start scripts modify the normal environment fairly heavily such that a shell in an xterm at the console is quite different from an ssh session from a windows terminal emulator. Perhaps it's gnome or kde or xinit thats messing him up? Has he tried using a text console? Or, from anywhere just "ssh localhost" ? -- Brian K. White brian@aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR +++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++. filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 10:10 AM, JB2 wrote:

How do you think it got on the machine, Randal, you tard! --

"tard" ??? good grief -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Randall:

Stubbornness and insistence are characteristics of human beings alone, not of computers or their software...

Yes, some PERSON at SUSE decided to change a very convenient setup I have been using for a very long time by creating/changing my profile.local. No matter what I did by setting the PATH variable there (which used to work), SUSE11.0 would put /usr/bin ahead of my modifications. I finally read enough bash scripts to find out I now have to use /etc/bash.bashrc.local to make my changes stick. I put this information here to help anyone else who gets snagged by this unexpected turn of events. Thanks Brain for you input as well. Chuck On 7/3/08, Randall R Schulz wrote:

On Thursday 03 July 2008 20:09, Chuck Davis wrote:

...

Has anyone discovered a way to get around the stubborn insistence of 11.0 to require /usr/bin as the first entry on the PATH variable. ...

...

Any help will be appreciated.

By the way, I'm talking about defining the PATH in profile.local -- no longer works.

Individuals control PATH and other environment variables by establishing or modifying them in their ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile files. See the "INVOCATION" section of the BASH manual for details.

System-wide defaults for shells are established in /etc/profile. Other application-specific defaults are established by files in "/etc/profile.d/".

...

Chuck

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Yea, Brian. That's what puzzled me. Everything else in profile.local was working except PATH. I had not previously encountered the necessity of mucking around in bash.bashrc.local. Now I know! All is working well. I'm liking SUSE11 and KDE4 more all the time. I'm not averse to adjusting -- I just like to know AHEAD of time when an adjustment is going to be required -- otherwise I whine. Thanks again. Chuck On 7/4/08, Brian K. White wrote:

Aha that might be a clue. I said I can't duplicate the problem, but, as it happens, I always supply my own /etc/bash.bashrc.local which has only one thing in it relating to PS1 and nothing else. Maybe that is why I don't see your problem. I'll have to wait for my next install to see what the stock 11.0 bash.bashrc.local is and see if that even makes any sense.

I feel for ya, but, it is just a config file. Not an immutable behavior of the system or some binary. They did't actually break anything, just altered a default behavior, and the functionality of profile.local was not actuall removed It doesn't stop you from doing exactly what you want, merely you have to adjust to the new version of the OS. That's just life on Linux. You always have to do that.

-- Brian K. White brian@aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR +++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++. filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk!

----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Davis" To: Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 2:16 PM Subject: Re: [opensuse] Re: 11.0 & PATH variable

...

Randall:

...

Stubbornness and insistence are characteristics of human beings alone, not of computers or their software...

Yes, some PERSON at SUSE decided to change a very convenient setup I have been using for a very long time by creating/changing my profile.local. No matter what I did by setting the PATH variable there (which used to work), SUSE11.0 would put /usr/bin ahead of my modifications. I finally read enough bash scripts to find out I now have to use /etc/bash.bashrc.local to make my changes stick.

I put this information here to help anyone else who gets snagged by this unexpected turn of events.

Thanks Brain for you input as well.

Chuck

On 7/3/08, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

On Thursday 03 July 2008 20:09, Chuck Davis wrote:

...

Has anyone discovered a way to get around the stubborn insistence of 11.0 to require /usr/bin as the first entry on the PATH variable. ...

...

...

Any help will be appreciated.

By the way, I'm talking about defining the PATH in profile.local -- no longer works.

Individuals control PATH and other environment variables by establishing or modifying them in their ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile files. See the "INVOCATION" section of the BASH manual for details.

System-wide defaults for shells are established in /etc/profile. Other application-specific defaults are established by files in "/etc/profile.d/".

...

Chuck

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

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