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From: Axel Reichert <mail@axel-reichert.de>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: Default PATH setting - reduce to something more sensible?
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2025 07:52:25 +0100
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Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:

> On 20.01.2025 09:05, Wayne wrote:
>> 
>> As for non-sudo PATH, you can always run:
>>     export PATH=$(getconf PATH)
>> To get a minimal PATH setting guaranteed to include all POSIX
>> utilities.
>
> Yes, this comes very close to what I was actually aiming at. In
> my environment that's just /bin and /usr/bin and this is what I
> typically need in my scripts (plus sometimes /usr/local/bin).

I am a late-comer to an interesting thread ...

I think that, depending on your Linux distribution, /bin and /sbin are
symbolic links to their respective /usr counterparts (in Debian there is
a "usrmerge" package to help with this transition). Also, depending on
the adherence to file hierarchy standards, there are different policies
when it comes to /opt and /usr/local (the latter here has no files, only
empty directories).

So a tidy minimalist might opt for /bin only (plus, if needed,
$HOME/bin, which is better than ~/bin, because tilde expansion is not,
AFAIK, included in POSIX) as non-root and /bin:/sbin else.

> But all the sbin directories (and other clutter) would be gone. It
> practically shows that these directories are unnecessary for a normal
> (non-root) user.

Well, /usr/games is populated here ...   (-:

Best regards

Axel