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From: Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@talktalk.net>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: Default PATH setting - reduce to something more sensible?
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2025 11:51:13 +0000
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Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
> On 15.01.2025 20:19, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>> Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@talktalk.net> writes:
>>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>>>> Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@talktalk.net> writes:
>>>>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>>>>>> Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@talktalk.net> writes:
>>>>>>>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
> [...]
>
>> The PDP-11 can be rationally compared with the situation of the OP,
>> namely, doing local filesystem operations on a single computer. [...]
>
> Since you're referring to me, the OP, please note that most arguments
> here have quickly made a relation to a straw man (a performance theme)
> or made other deviations from the basic question(s) that concerned me.
>
> Essentially there were two questions I had that I can reformulate in a
> more compact form as
>
>   "Why, in the first place, are all these path components
>    part of the default PATH for ordinary users? - Is there
>    any [functional] rationale or necessity for that?"

Because someone thinks that all these locations should be searched for
commands in the order specified. Eg, the point of the lightdm entry is
very likely to enable lightdm to 'override' arbitrary user commands by
making sure that the shell will find lightdm-commands of the same name
first.

OTOH, that's pretty much a truism.

>
>   "_If_ many of the default PATH components are unnecessary,
>    where and how to best reduce these settings to a sensible
>    subset? - Without spoiling the system, of course."

As already written above: They are part of PATH because someone thinks
that's sensible. Whether or not they're necessary in a certain situation
is an entirely different question. If you want to work out empirically
what's "necessary" for you, remove them all and add directories to the
default PATH one-by-one as the need arises.

OTOH, what's the point? My flat contains more light switches than I
actually need, with some of them being (as far as I could determine)
entirely blind/ connected to lamps I don't use and some of them being
redundant because they switch lamps on or off which can also be switched
on or off with another light switch. But as they're just sitting on the
wall and removing them would require work, I haven't even considered
doing so.