Am I messing up the system?[Solved]

[M_R 0]

Hello. This is a quick question:

 

 

I'm tired of having to modify bashprofile files for every single user to be able to run programs from commandline without having to type the entire path. So I discovered that by placing a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin, all users (including root) can run the program easily. Is this evil? Am I breaking the system?

 

Thanks

 

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

Edited September 26, 2011 by M_R

[ianw1974 11]

No, definitely not breaking the system.

[M_R 0]

No, definitely not breaking the system.

 

Glad to know. Now, is there any downside? and should I Remove the entries for Java in the bash profile for each user since they can now run it without using bashprofle?

[ianw1974 11]

I normally install java versions from sun ending in rpm.bin, because it does it system-wide and thus you don't need to manually export JAVA_HOME or anything else like that. The .bin just extracts and then the rest is a case of manual configuration. It would be messy moving the java executables and all the other java directories under /usr/local/bin.

[scarecrow 0]

The regular ways to run programs which are outside the system paths are two:

1. Creating a helpfolder (e.g. /opt/progs), linking the programs in there and finally adding /opt/progs to the system PATH

2. Creating aliases to the user's ~.bashrc file. These are user-specific, of course.

[ianw1974 11]

Aliases can be made system-wide with /etc/bashrc. That way you would only need to edit this, and every user would get your customisations as scarecrow mentions.