[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: SuSE 9 or 9.1 PATH environment changes after su -- understanding why, instead of bashing

[Ralph Green, Jr]

Bryan,

On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 01:07, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 01:16, Ralph Green, Jr wrote:
> > This is completely untrue.  Stick with the facts, please.
> 
> You should re-read your correspondence.  You went all over the place,
> using labels like "broken" and "half-hearted attempt" in addition to
   I was talking about a variety of things, and that is why I was all
over the place.  I was describing various inadequacies of Fedora Core,
because you asked me to.  I said one particular feature of FC2, that had
worked in FC1, was broken, as it is.  I said ext2 was a half-hearted
attempt at a journaling file system.  This is an opinion, not a fact,
but it is an informed opinion and I think it is fair.  I described
several annoying aspects of RedHat and Fedora Core.  I was specific and
backed every thing I said with details. I did not say RedHat was
broken.  I never said SUSE had an alias of su- for su.  I repeat my
modest request.  Don't lie about what I said. 

> "annoying."  If you don't like something, that's cool.  Everyone finds
> something different o be "annoying," and I'll respect that.  But the
> other comments, just flat out based on ignorance.
> 
  This does not describe me.  Some things are different and that is
fine.  Some things are annoying and I was responding to your request for
what I found annoying.

> Sorry, I return arrogant statements with the same arrogant attitude.  I
> kept if off-list.  You decided to take one small detail and make a big
  There has been only one arrogant party in this discussion and his last
name is Smith.

> stink on-list.  As I stated was "legacy," and others also followed-up
> with their similar reasonings, there is a reason why older Linux
> distributions act a certain way.  Not to be "annoying," but because it
> is just "how it has been done before."
> 
  Maybe your confusion is related to this.  I never asked why old
versions did something one way.  Maybe you thought I wanted that
information, for some reason.  I specifically asked why the current
version of Fedora Core needed to behave differently from every other
distribution I tested.

> But even with the changes, it seems your comments on Red Hat are limited
> to earlier releases.  Newer Red Hat releases change the PATH for su. 
  You just don't pay attention to what I said.  I suppose you are just
shocked that anyone would complain about RedHat or Fedora.  I note poor
aspects of just about any distribution.  You asked be about RedHat, so
all my comments to you were about RedHat and Fedora Core.  All the tests
I made were on my Fedora Core 2 system.  I said that after doing an su
to root, the ifconfig program is not in my path and it is not.  I stick
with specific, observable facts.  You should try that.

> Furthermore, there seems to be little consistency between distros. 
> Which means no difference than before, I use absolute paths if I want to
> be sure for security.
> 
  I always use complete paths when I am writing scripts.  When I am just
popping up a terminal window to run ifconfig, it is annoying if the
system requires me to type a full path.  I would rather use systems that
don't annoy the user as much.

> Attempt to understand things.  Just don't label them "broken" because
  I called something broken because it was broken.  Nothing more.  In
this case, it was the ability to pass a kernel parameter to the
installer for Fedora Core 2 and thus be able to install the OS to a
decent filesystem.  It worked in FC1, but not FC2. I suppose I could try
to understand exactly why it was broken, but what point would this
serve?  When I need a new system and require a decent filesystem, I'll
just install SuSE, rather than figure out how FC2 is broken.