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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: Default PATH setting - reduce to something more sensible?
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2025 14:10:51 +0100
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On 16.01.2025 12:51, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>>
>> 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.

That's a thought that I had as well. But upon reconsideration I thought
that it wouldn't be necessary to _export_ that path component into the
user environment.

> 
> 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.

Well, I have a clear idea what I need and what is necessary. Since I
cannot remove that 'lightdm' thing I may just define the PATH anew in
my (shell-)environment.

> 
> 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.

That are different things. The switches are put in advance at places
that are reasonable. And you wouldn't put a switch below the WC, I'm
sure (read: "WC" ~ 'lightdm').

Janis