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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] is there a FHS/LSB rationale for installing in /usr/bin vs /usr/sbin?

  • Subject: Re: [OCLUG-Tech] is there a FHS/LSB rationale for installing in /usr/bin vs /usr/sbin?
  • From: Rick Leir <rleir [ at ] leirtech [ dot ] com>
  • Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 06:10:58 -0400
Robert
Thanks for the 'nitpicky pedantry', I generally learn from these threads.

This is from distant memory. Sbin means system binaries, implying that they are for sysadmins not for (l)users. The sysadmin can explore sbin utilities more easily when they are in a separate directory. Also, when there is a recovery shell environment with limited resources, the sbin utilities or a subset of them can be provided (I am not clear on this, comments are welcome). Lsusb seems to be more of a desktop user utility, while Lspci seems to be more of a sysadmin's tool.

Fedora is a playground for the RedHat devs, and it can seem a bit loose. Things get more organized when the features are moved to the RedHat distro. I like Fedora at home, and I feel .. what is the word .. when using Redhat at work. 
Cheers -- Rick

On March 14, 2018 5:22:14 AM EDT, "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday [ at ] crashcourse [ dot ] ca> wrote:
>
>  more nitpicky pedantry, but i was summarizing some handy system H/W
>utilities and noticed that, while lsusb and lspci philosophically do
>the same thing (that is, display system info), on my fedora system,
>they are installed differently:
>
>  $ type lsusb
>  lsusb is /usr/bin/lsusb
>  $ type lspci
>  lspci is /usr/sbin/lspci
>  $
>
>obviously, it's not a big deal since both /usr/bin and /usr/sbin are
>part of the normal search path for even regular users, but i was
>reminded of the excruciating detail of the filesystem hierarchy
>standard and was wondering if there was anything in the recent FHS
>3.0:
>
>  http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/index.html
>
>that had anything to say about a distinction between those two
>directories. there's nothing noticeably different between those two
>commands in terms of basic properties:
>
>  $ ls -l /usr/bin/lsusb
>  -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 208720 Dec  3 22:09 /usr/bin/lsusb
>  $ ls -l /usr/sbin/lspci
>  -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 83704 Aug  4  2017 /usr/sbin/lspci
>  $
>
>that suggests one is more of a "system" utility than the other. so is
>this just arbitrary, or is there anything in the FHS that addresses
>this sort of thing?
>
>rday
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-- 
Sorry for being brief. Alternate email is rickleir at yahoo dot com