Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Dane Mutters]

>
> FWIW, grub.cfg is deliberately in /boot, rather than putting an
> autogenerated file in /etc.  (/boot/grub/menu.lst had its own problems,
> as a partly-autogenerated and partly-manually-maintained file - a scheme
> that might almost have been designed to create bugs.)


Colin, I'd forgotten that the autogenerated GRUB 2 grub.cfg is in /boot,
not /etc; I agree that this is less frustrating than if it had been in /etc.


> Quite frankly: there has been no discussion among Ubuntu developers
> about doing anything of the kind, and I seriously doubt that it would
> ever make it onto our to-do list which has more than enough on it
> already without making work for ourselves.  The suggestion on this list
> of moving binaries to /usr/bin hasn't been made by Ubuntu developers.
>
> If it ever came up as a serious prospective Ubuntu development project,
> I would argue strongly against it on the grounds that the gains, if any,
> would be negligible compared to the work involved and the bugs that
> would be likely to be created.  Simplifications here belong at higher
> levels.  For example, the suggestion made somewhere in this thread that
> there's no good reason for Firefox to require the full path to an
> executable to open a resource seems like an excellent one.  It should
> rarely be necessary to care about the full path to an executable at all,
> never mind attempting to consolidate them all into one directory.


I admit that I'm quite glad to hear all this.  :-)  I, for one, would
welcome Firefox and all others (where feasible) not requiring full paths to
executables.  I wonder if this is a Windows compatibility thing that isn't
fully Linux-ized?  I'm sure the bug that Chris kindly pointed-out has the
full scoop.

I can see how this issue would be better handled on a per-application
basis, than on a distribution-wide one.  Thanks for your comments.

Cheers!

--Dane
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Chris Coulson]

On 07/12/11 23:35, Colin Watson wrote:
> Simplifications here belong at higher levels. For example, the
> suggestion made somewhere in this thread that there's no good reason
> for Firefox to require the full path to an executable to open a
> resource seems like an excellent one.

That's tracked in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=397700

Regards
Chris

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Colin Watson]

On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 11:26:01PM -0800, Dane Mutters wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Dane Mutters  wrote:
> > I've seen a bit of this obscuring mentality creep into modern Linux
> > (including Ubuntu), in the form of auto-generated /etc/ stuff--which isn't
> > necessarily a bad thing, except when you can't easily change what's getting
> > generated (GRUB 2, anyone?

FWIW, grub.cfg is deliberately in /boot, rather than putting an
autogenerated file in /etc.  (/boot/grub/menu.lst had its own problems,
as a partly-autogenerated and partly-manually-maintained file - a scheme
that might almost have been designed to create bugs.)

> > Yes, by dumping everything into /usr/bin, you might make binaries easier
> > to find for basically Linux-illiterate users who probably wouldn't know
> > what to do with the binaries once they found them.  You would, however,
> > make things very difficult for any sysadmin, power-user, or person trying
> > to learn Linux's guts, as well as anybody else (who didn't design the
> > system or spend days/weeks reading about it...) who might actually have a
> > good reason to be mucking around in those areas (i.e. not be on his way to
> > screwing it all up through ignorance or recklessness)--that is, if things
> > are linked or otherwise obscured.

Quite so.

> > So, if the Ubuntu developers really do want to simplify the filesystem
> > structure,

Quite frankly: there has been no discussion among Ubuntu developers
about doing anything of the kind, and I seriously doubt that it would
ever make it onto our to-do list which has more than enough on it
already without making work for ourselves.  The suggestion on this list
of moving binaries to /usr/bin hasn't been made by Ubuntu developers.

If it ever came up as a serious prospective Ubuntu development project,
I would argue strongly against it on the grounds that the gains, if any,
would be negligible compared to the work involved and the bugs that
would be likely to be created.  Simplifications here belong at higher
levels.  For example, the suggestion made somewhere in this thread that
there's no good reason for Firefox to require the full path to an
executable to open a resource seems like an excellent one.  It should
rarely be necessary to care about the full path to an executable at all,
never mind attempting to consolidate them all into one directory.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson   [cjwat...@ubuntu.com]

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Dane Mutters]

I accidentally hit reply instead of reply-to-all.  My message is below the
quote.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Dane Mutters  wrote:

>
> If you really care about end users and you think this is something that
>> need fixing, then the proper way to do it is to:
>>
>> 1. create a fake /usr/bin/ where all binaries are available without
>> breaking anything else. (this could be done by having a virtual filesystem
>> of some sort that automatically finds things for you, think autofs /etc/
>> auto.net
>>
>> . So if you say: which bash it shows as /bin/bash if it hasn't been used
>> from /usr/bin/bash. and which bash will be /bin/bash and /usr/bin/bash if
>> somebody or some command called /usr/bin/bash as it would "mount" this for
>> you there). This would mean that all packages that install things to
>> /usr/bin would need to be installed elsewhere... which is really bad
>> 2. write GUI tools that find binaries properly, think gnome-open but for
>> binaries. I guess similar to command-not-found in Ubuntu
>> 3. hide the whole filesystem from end-users GUI programs (MacOS X does
>> this beautifully, if you open a terminal you can cd / and it takes you to
>> some /private hidden directory)
>>
>> If it was me, I would do this actually:
>>
>> 1. hide all from users
>> 2. install all packages to /opt/app/version/{bin,share,
>> lib}
>> 3. symlink stuff from /opt/app/version/bin/* to /usr/bin/ if not already
>> there
>>
>> And write a really good update-alternatives to manage /usr/bin/* symlinks
>>
>
> I'm glad you mentioned this, Luis.  I know you weren't exactly advocating
> such changes, but I think the implications of this bear discussing.
>
> Another issue to mention, that I dearly hope has some positive hold in
> minds of the Ubuntu community, already, is the hell of actually editing
> configurations, hand-linking files, installing 3rd-party/manually-compiled
> apps, etc. when you have a system that makes you deal with a "shells game"
> of where things actually are.  I, personally, HATE that.  It's exactly why
> I decided (years ago) that, despite the usefulness of YAST, and the
> easiness of the GUI, I couldn't tolerate using Suse in the least.  Whenever
> I wanted to edit a configuration file by hand, I found that it was being
> created by several other files--that themselves were created by some binary
> GUI tool that I couldn't see into the guts of.
>
> Making a semi-knowledgeable "power user" of Linux/Unix (such as I consider
> myself to be) sort out a spaghetti of links and virtual filesystem junk
> just to figure out where some file is, or where it's safe to "make install"
> something into would be entirely unreasonable.  One of the things I like
> about most Linux distros is that you can look at the filesystem directly
> and tweak things to your liking, so long as you've read some basic
> documentation on what you intend to change.  Yes, Mac OS X does a great job
> of obscuring the filesystem hierarchy from typical users (which makes it
> easier for the really computer-illiterate ones), but it's a pain to
> actually get into the "guts" of.  Heaven forbid you have to use a command
> line to fix something...
>
> I've seen a bit of this obscuring mentality creep into modern Linux
> (including Ubuntu), in the form of auto-generated /etc/ stuff--which isn't
> necessarily a bad thing, except when you can't easily change what's getting
> generated (GRUB 2, anyone?  I don't want to learn another dialect of a
> scripting language to remove a single word from my boot-up screen...)--and
> I truly cringe at the thought of dealing with this on a system-wide scale,
> instead of just in a few spots in /etc/ and similar.
>
> Yes, by dumping everything into /usr/bin, you might make binaries easier
> to find for basically Linux-illiterate users who probably wouldn't know
> what to do with the binaries once they found them.  You would, however,
> make things very difficult for any sysadmin, power-user, or person trying
> to learn Linux's guts, as well as anybody else (who didn't design the
> system or spend days/weeks reading about it...) who might actually have a
> good reason to be mucking around in those areas (i.e. not be on his way to
> screwing it all up through ignorance or recklessness)--that is, if things
> are linked or otherwise obscured.  Dumping all binaries into one place
> poses its own problems, as are being discussed already; so I'll forbear
> repeating what's already been said.
>
> So, if the Ubuntu developers really do want to simplify the filesystem
> structure, please do it TRANSPARENTLY, so that those people who really want
> to see the insides of their installation can do so sensibly, without having
> to sort out where things ACTUALLY are, independent of where they LOOK like
> they are.  I honestly don't know whether putting everything into /usr/bin
> is a good idea (that's something for those more knowledgeable than myself
> to work out--though I'm inclined to be against it).  I just hope that
>

Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Robert Holtzman  wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 09:08:44AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Robert Holtzman  wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 09:15:11AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> > > > Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular
> app,
> > > > but that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all
> > > > binaries under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about
> silly
> > > > distinctions like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used
> by a
> > > > System Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just
> put
> > > > everything in /usr/bin to keep things simple.
> > >
> > > There are programs that an admin doesn't want users to run.
> > >
> >
> > You're kidding, right?
>
> In view of the fact that the op said *all* binaries, would you, as an
> admin, want users of unknown knowledge/ability to have the ability to run
> any program in /sbin? That would scare the hell out of me.


If there's anything in /sbin that when run by unprivileged user does any
type of harm to the system, you have much bigger problem on hand.  All of
those utilities will simply fail and exit with an error
if unprivileged user attempts to do anything remotely interesting with them
(other then boring and safe things, like look up some world-readable info,
etc).  So...  No, I don't see any problem if some random user puts /sbin in
his path.  The only difference is he can simply type swapoff, instead of
having to type /sbin/swapoff.  Or in other words, he'll simply get bunch of
useless (for him) utilities included in shell's search path.
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Robert Holtzman]

On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 09:08:44AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Robert Holtzman  wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 09:15:11AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> > > Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular app,
> > > but that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all
> > > binaries under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about silly
> > > distinctions like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used by a
> > > System Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just put
> > > everything in /usr/bin to keep things simple.
> >
> > There are programs that an admin doesn't want users to run.
> >
> 
> You're kidding, right?

In view of the fact that the op said *all* binaries, would you, as an
admin, want users of unknown knowledge/ability to have the ability to run
any program in /sbin? That would scare the hell out of me.

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Luis Mondesi]

If you really care about end users and you think this is something that
need fixing, then the proper way to do it is to:

1. create a fake /usr/bin/ where all binaries are available without
breaking anything else. (this could be done by having a virtual filesystem
of some sort that automatically finds things for you, think autofs /etc/
auto.net. So if you say: which bash it shows as /bin/bash if it hasn't been
used from /usr/bin/bash. and which bash will be /bin/bash and /usr/bin/bash
if somebody or some command called /usr/bin/bash as it would "mount" this
for you there). This would mean that all packages that install things to
/usr/bin would need to be installed elsewhere... which is really bad
2. write GUI tools that find binaries properly, think gnome-open but for
binaries. I guess similar to command-not-found in Ubuntu
3. hide the whole filesystem from end-users GUI programs (MacOS X does this
beautifully, if you open a terminal you can cd / and it takes you to some
/private hidden directory)

If it was me, I would do this actually:

1. hide all from users
2. install all packages to /opt/app/version/{bin,share,lib}
3. symlink stuff from /opt/app/version/bin/* to /usr/bin/ if not already
there

And write a really good update-alternatives to manage /usr/bin/* symlinks

Both solutions are really destructive and break UNIX mentalities dating
back to who knows when... However, the second solution would work cleanest
up to some point (say that somebody decides to mount /opt from a disk
that's not available during early boot and your fsck needs to be exec from
/usr/bin)

My opinion is that this is silly and we should not move anything to
/usr/bin only. If your goal is to make things easier to end-users, then
just add a new path to /etc/profile and they will all have it, and put
symlinks there. If your solution is to make it easier for both 3rd party
vendors and end-users, then modify the FHS so it gets standarized for all
Linux distributions.

I do not think that all people using Ubuntu have /usr from the same
partition that / is. And even if they do, I'm sure a lot of scripts/apps
will break if you move everything to /usr/bin and, say, symlink from
/usr/bin to /bin /sbin /usr/local/bin /usr/local/sbin etc..., so the same
commands are available from all legacy PATHs. Madness. Things will break.
Examples: some obscure app needed the user-level privileges from /usr/bin
and not the admin-only /usr/sbin version (which might have set-uid bit set
and who knows what other permissions setup). Or another example: your app
does not like symlinks and it found /bin/foo. Or another: my binary has the
same name as one provided by the system in /usr/sbin, but since now
/usr/bin/ has this name, my app will conflict (3rd party vendors, not
packages from Debian/Ubuntu).

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Matt Alexander  wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Robert Holtzman  wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 09:15:11AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
>> > Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular app,
>> > but that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all
>> > binaries under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about silly
>> > distinctions like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used by a
>> > System Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just put
>> > everything in /usr/bin to keep things simple.
>>
>> There are programs that an admin doesn't want users to run.
>>
>
> You're kidding, right?
>

There's a lot of history behind /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin and /usr/sbin.  Most
of the reasons behind having them separate don't hold anymore.  For
example, binaries in /sbin used to be statically linked, which isn't true
anymore.  /bin and /sbin used to hold binaries needed to repair system
while booted into bare-bones mode (i.e. single-user) with /usr partition
unavailable (these days, people don't normally have /usr on separate
partition, though some still do it out of old habits).  Etc.

Said that, if you actually look into /sbin, or /usr/sbin, there's not that
many things in there, and it's mostly system binaries users don't care
about that much (when was the last time you used LVM commands as regular
user?).  /bin is relatively small as well.  Moving everything (as in really
everything) isn't as simple as it seems.  You'd break every shell script in
known universe that's referencing /bin/sh, to start with obvious.  Though,
that one could be solved by making /bin a symbolic link to /usr/bin.  Many
binaries and scripts expect things to be in their "historical" locations
would be broken as well.  Wich again could be solved with symbolic link or
two.  However, I don't see why moving really everything under /usr/bin
would be worth the effort.

As for /opt vs. /usr/local.  Personally, I always thought of /opt as place
for large/complex 3rd party packages (kind of equivalent of "C:\Program
Files" in Windows), allowing them not to have to worry too much about
conflicting file names (something that would be constant source of problems
if *all* binaries were to go under /usr/bin), and /usr/local as place for
unpackaged things I compiled directly from source (i.e. place where I don't
have to worry about stumping over an packaged binary).  But that's just my
personal (and likely overly simplistic) view on things.

As for locating particular file on the file system really fast...  Well,
there's this nifty old utility called "locate", that's been around for
like...  forever?  It consists of cron job (not sure if its enabled by
default) that indexes file system periodically, and utility that reads that
database and produces instant results.
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Matt Alexander]

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Robert Holtzman  wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 09:15:11AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> > Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular app,
> > but that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all
> > binaries under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about silly
> > distinctions like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used by a
> > System Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just put
> > everything in /usr/bin to keep things simple.
>
> There are programs that an admin doesn't want users to run.
>

You're kidding, right?
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Robert Holtzman]

On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 09:15:11AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular app,
> but that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all
> binaries under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about silly
> distinctions like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used by a
> System Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just put
> everything in /usr/bin to keep things simple.

There are programs that an admin doesn't want users to run.

Don't top post.

  ...snip..

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[John McCabe-Dansted]

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 7:16 PM, Colin Watson  wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 05, 2011 at 02:40:31AM +0800, John McCabe-Dansted wrote:
>> We could even enhance which to look in obvious places off the path (perhaps
>> locatedb?)  and print the output on stderr if we really wanted to.
>
> Please don't - 'which' is used in scripts and needs to preserve its
> current behaviour.  Any extra behaviour should be added to a
> different/new program.

There are ways to detect script vs interactive shell, but nobody seems
to want this feature enough to justify adding it to which anyway, so
it is a bit of a moot point.

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[John McCabe-Dansted]

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 4:02 AM, nick rundy  wrote:
> There are several situations where I need to find an executable. One that
> comes immediately to mind is when I need to specify what program to use to
> open an online stream and the program I want is not appearing in an offered

I find it quite annoying that Firefox doesn't automatically find the
file for me. I type in the executable name just like I do in bash, but
Firefox doesn't even search the path. In this case, needing to know
where the executable is seems like a bug.

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Luis M]

My 2 cents.
Let other distros do this first. Wait 5 years to allow problems to be sorted 
out. Then discuss again. 

--
A bug magnet

El Dec 5, 2011, a las 12:15, Matt Alexander  
escribió:

> Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular app, but 
> that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all binaries 
> under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about silly distinctions 
> like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used by a System 
> Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just put everything 
> in /usr/bin to keep things simple.
> 
> 
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 4:24 AM, Dane Mutters  wrote:
> I don't know if the original poster has since learned this, but I think it's 
> worth noting several things, in case the person coming over from Windows 
> hasn't figured it out.  (If this is a non-issue, please disregard this email.)
> 
> 1) Linux/Unix executables don't have a .exe extension.  Typically, they don't 
> have any extension at all, and can conceivably have every extension 
> imaginable (including common ones like .sh for scripts).  If you're looking 
> for an executable, forget looking for its extension.  Try using the "find" 
> command to look for executable files, or if you know the one you want, 
> already, use the "which" command, as above.
> 
> 2) You almost certainly don't need to find that file.  As mentioned above, if 
> it's not in your PATH setting, then something is broken.  This is pretty 
> rare.  If you need to execute a command--from a terminal or from an "open 
> with" dialogue, just type the command (in the appropriate dialogue box, as 
> needed).  If you want to open a PDF, and the GUI hasn't figured out how to do 
> that, type "acroread", "evince", or whatever you have installed into the box.
> 
> 3)  +1 about Windows having an absurdly hard-to-use filesystem, where 
> finding binaries/executables is concerned.  Once you learn Linux, you'll 
> bless its build-in filesystem, and probably find little/no need to mess with 
> it.  For that matter, +1 to all the stuff about /bin, /sbin, /usr/local/bin, 
> /usr/local/sbin, /opt, etc. having useful, specific purposes.  Sure, it bugs 
> me when some program insists on installing someplace I don't think makes 
> sense.  Usually it'll let me change it upon install, if it's from a script, 
> but if not, I can still put it into the PATH if it's not already there, and 
> after that it doesn't matter!  So long as the uninstall functionality works 
> for a given program (which it REALLY, REALLY should...), and the executable 
> structure of the program is remotely sensible (looking at you, OpenOffice, 
> Mozilla, etc.), it's all gravy, so far as I'm concerned.  Proprietary 
> programs are the more problematic culprits, anyway, and there's not much a 
> distribution can do about them, so far as I'm aware.  
> 
> 4) I've never liked Fedora, anyway.  :-p
> 
> 
> I'm sure the real gurus here know a lot more about the specifics than I do, 
> so have at it!
> 
> --Dane
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 3:16 AM, Colin Watson  wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 05, 2011 at 02:40:31AM +0800, John McCabe-Dansted wrote:
> > We could even enhance which to look in obvious places off the path (perhaps
> > locatedb?)  and print the output on stderr if we really wanted to.
> 
> Please don't - 'which' is used in scripts and needs to preserve its
> current behaviour.  Any extra behaviour should be added to a
> different/new program.
> 
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Matt Alexander]

Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular app,
but that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all
binaries under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about silly
distinctions like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used by a
System Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just put
everything in /usr/bin to keep things simple.


On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 4:24 AM, Dane Mutters  wrote:

> I don't know if the original poster has since learned this, but I think
> it's worth noting several things, in case the person coming over from
> Windows hasn't figured it out.  (If this is a non-issue, please disregard
> this email.)
>
> 1) Linux/Unix executables don't have a .exe extension.  Typically, they
> don't have any extension at all, and can conceivably have every extension
> imaginable (including common ones like .sh for scripts).  If you're looking
> for an executable, forget looking for its extension.  Try using the "find"
> command to look for executable files, or if you know the one you want,
> already, use the "which" command, as above.
>
> 2) You almost certainly don't need to find that file.  As mentioned above,
> if it's not in your PATH setting, then something is broken.  This is pretty
> rare.  If you need to execute a command--from a terminal or from an "open
> with" dialogue, just type the command (in the appropriate dialogue box, as
> needed).  If you want to open a PDF, and the GUI hasn't figured out how to
> do that, type "acroread", "evince", or whatever you have installed into the
> box.
>
> 3)  +1 about Windows having an absurdly hard-to-use filesystem,
> where finding binaries/executables is concerned.  Once you learn Linux,
> you'll bless its build-in filesystem, and probably find little/no need to
> mess with it.  For that matter, +1 to all the stuff about /bin, /sbin,
> /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin, /opt, etc. having useful, specific
> purposes.  Sure, it bugs me when some program insists on installing
> someplace I don't think makes sense.  Usually it'll let me change it upon
> install, if it's from a script, but if not, I can still put it into the
> PATH if it's not already there, and after that it doesn't matter!  So long
> as the uninstall functionality works for a given program (which it REALLY,
> REALLY should...), and the executable structure of the program is remotely
> sensible (looking at you, OpenOffice, Mozilla, etc.), it's all gravy, so
> far as I'm concerned.  Proprietary programs are the more problematic
> culprits, anyway, and there's not much a distribution can do about them, so
> far as I'm aware.  
>
> 4) I've never liked Fedora, anyway.  :-p
>
>
> I'm sure the real gurus here know a lot more about the specifics than I
> do, so have at it!
>
> --Dane
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 3:16 AM, Colin Watson  wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Nov 05, 2011 at 02:40:31AM +0800, John McCabe-Dansted wrote:
>> > We could even enhance which to look in obvious places off the path
>> (perhaps
>> > locatedb?)  and print the output on stderr if we really wanted to.
>>
>> Please don't - 'which' is used in scripts and needs to preserve its
>> current behaviour.  Any extra behaviour should be added to a
>> different/new program.
>>
>> --
>> Colin Watson   [cjwat...@ubuntu.com]
>>
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Dane Mutters]

I don't know if the original poster has since learned this, but I think
it's worth noting several things, in case the person coming over from
Windows hasn't figured it out.  (If this is a non-issue, please disregard
this email.)

1) Linux/Unix executables don't have a .exe extension.  Typically, they
don't have any extension at all, and can conceivably have every extension
imaginable (including common ones like .sh for scripts).  If you're looking
for an executable, forget looking for its extension.  Try using the "find"
command to look for executable files, or if you know the one you want,
already, use the "which" command, as above.

2) You almost certainly don't need to find that file.  As mentioned above,
if it's not in your PATH setting, then something is broken.  This is pretty
rare.  If you need to execute a command--from a terminal or from an "open
with" dialogue, just type the command (in the appropriate dialogue box, as
needed).  If you want to open a PDF, and the GUI hasn't figured out how to
do that, type "acroread", "evince", or whatever you have installed into the
box.

3)  +1 about Windows having an absurdly hard-to-use filesystem, where
finding binaries/executables is concerned.  Once you learn Linux, you'll
bless its build-in filesystem, and probably find little/no need to mess
with it.  For that matter, +1 to all the stuff about /bin, /sbin,
/usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin, /opt, etc. having useful, specific
purposes.  Sure, it bugs me when some program insists on installing
someplace I don't think makes sense.  Usually it'll let me change it upon
install, if it's from a script, but if not, I can still put it into the
PATH if it's not already there, and after that it doesn't matter!  So long
as the uninstall functionality works for a given program (which it REALLY,
REALLY should...), and the executable structure of the program is remotely
sensible (looking at you, OpenOffice, Mozilla, etc.), it's all gravy, so
far as I'm concerned.  Proprietary programs are the more problematic
culprits, anyway, and there's not much a distribution can do about them, so
far as I'm aware.  

4) I've never liked Fedora, anyway.  :-p


I'm sure the real gurus here know a lot more about the specifics than I do,
so have at it!

--Dane


On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 3:16 AM, Colin Watson  wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 05, 2011 at 02:40:31AM +0800, John McCabe-Dansted wrote:
> > We could even enhance which to look in obvious places off the path
> (perhaps
> > locatedb?)  and print the output on stderr if we really wanted to.
>
> Please don't - 'which' is used in scripts and needs to preserve its
> current behaviour.  Any extra behaviour should be added to a
> different/new program.
>
> --
> Colin Watson   [cjwat...@ubuntu.com]
>
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Colin Watson]

On Sat, Nov 05, 2011 at 02:40:31AM +0800, John McCabe-Dansted wrote:
> We could even enhance which to look in obvious places off the path (perhaps
> locatedb?)  and print the output on stderr if we really wanted to.

Please don't - 'which' is used in scripts and needs to preserve its
current behaviour.  Any extra behaviour should be added to a
different/new program.

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Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[John McCabe-Dansted]

On Thursday, November 3, 2011, John Moser wrote:
>
> find a binary?  Here, I've solved this problem for you, completely.
> It's easy.  Do this:
>
> luser$ which ls
>
> luser$ which gnome-session
>
> luser$ which synaptic
>
> If it isn't in your path, then it's broken.  Something strange has
>

We could even enhance which to look in obvious places off the path (perhaps
locatedb?)  and print the output on stderr if we really wanted to. If users
really want to do this sort of thing we should add this to the GUI, e.g. an
"all executables/applications" gnome vfs metadirectory.


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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 12:52:44AM +0100, Lanoxx wrote:
> The discussion of /usr vs. / has also been in debian and the general
> consens seemed to be that fedoras use case is not applicable to debian
> because it would break compatibility with systems that dont have an
> initramfs. It would also be neccessary to move tools such as fsck and
> others into initramfs (which fedora will do) as otherwise there wont be
> any useable system if /usr is not accesible (because its mounted of
> network, or because it has file system errors).

Indeed.

> So while I generally like this idea I guess its better to leave things
> as they are. IMHO the only thing that might be worth discussing is
> whether the distinction of 'bin' and 'sbin' is still valid today since
> nowadays they are both in the PATH anyway. So instead of moving
> everything to /usr maybe we could merge \each\ of the bin/sbin folders
> seperately so that instead of six folders we are only left with /bin,
> usr/bin, usr/local/bin.

Surely there are better things to spend time on ... this kind of
wholesale rearrangement is very time-consuming, has a habit of breaking
things we didn't realise had hardcoded paths (sure, they were buggy
anyway, but that isn't necessarily a reason to break them), and doesn't
provide much real benefit.  Better to just leave it be.

Cheers,

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Lanoxx]

Hi,

The discussion of /usr vs. / has also been in debian and the general
consens seemed to be that fedoras use case is not applicable to debian
because it would break compatibility with systems that dont have an
initramfs. It would also be neccessary to move tools such as fsck and
others into initramfs (which fedora will do) as otherwise there wont be
any useable system if /usr is not accesible (because its mounted of
network, or because it has file system errors).

Generally it should be possible to boot with just / and an optional
initramfs and get a minimal system that has the tools available to fix
things. This is not possible if we move everything to /usr, then put
/usr on a file server. This is a valid use case, but if the network is
not available or even if user is not on the network but on the same disk
and the file system gets corrupted you will want to have the tools at
hand to fix /usr.

Putting everything into initramfs does not seem to be a sensible
solution as it would make the boot process slower.

So while I generally like this idea I guess its better to leave things
as they are. IMHO the only thing that might be worth discussing is
whether the distinction of 'bin' and 'sbin' is still valid today since
nowadays they are both in the PATH anyway. So instead of moving
everything to /usr maybe we could merge \each\ of the bin/sbin folders
seperately so that instead of six folders we are only left with /bin,
usr/bin, usr/local/bin.



On 02/11/11 20:45, Michael Loftis wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Martin Pitt  wrote:
>> nick rundy [2011-11-01 15:01 -0400]:
>>> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it 
>>> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\)
>>
>> In fact, Windows makes that really hard, as there is no standard
>> location for binaries. Each application ships its executables in its
>> own directory.
> 
> +1 to this.  Unixen in general are much more consistent.  User level
> binaries shipped with the base system go in /bin, system level (eg
> root type stuff) /sbin.  Additional packages not part of the base
> system belong in the /usr/bin and /usr/sbin locations, any package not
> following that needs fixing, not breaking *EVERYTHING* in the world so
> that "all bins are in the same dir" -- since they already are supposed
> to be.
> 
> Just *TRY* to find all the executable binaries for say MS Office.  Now
> how about DLLs?  Yeah, good luck with that.
> 
>>
>>> Finding an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks
>>> organization that makes sense to users.
>>
>> I doubt that many users actually care, and those wo do can use
>> "which". Also. all binaries a user is actually concerned with are in
>> /usr/bin (i. e. the ones you'd call to open documents with).
>>
>>> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
>>> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>>
>> That would mean that we need to drop the possibility to have /usr on a
>> separate partition/network file system, or make the initramfs
>> clever/complicated enough to actually wait for /usr to come up.
>>
>> Also, the separation of /sbin and /usr/sbin is not just totally
>> random; for non-admin users it makes them not appear in tab completion
>> etc, which cleans up the command namespace a bit.
> 
> Another +1.
> 

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Michael Loftis]

On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Martin Pitt  wrote:
> nick rundy [2011-11-01 15:01 -0400]:
>> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it 
>> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\)
>
> In fact, Windows makes that really hard, as there is no standard
> location for binaries. Each application ships its executables in its
> own directory.

+1 to this.  Unixen in general are much more consistent.  User level
binaries shipped with the base system go in /bin, system level (eg
root type stuff) /sbin.  Additional packages not part of the base
system belong in the /usr/bin and /usr/sbin locations, any package not
following that needs fixing, not breaking *EVERYTHING* in the world so
that "all bins are in the same dir" -- since they already are supposed
to be.

Just *TRY* to find all the executable binaries for say MS Office.  Now
how about DLLs?  Yeah, good luck with that.

>
>> Finding an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks
>> organization that makes sense to users.
>
> I doubt that many users actually care, and those wo do can use
> "which". Also. all binaries a user is actually concerned with are in
> /usr/bin (i. e. the ones you'd call to open documents with).
>
>> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
>> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>
> That would mean that we need to drop the possibility to have /usr on a
> separate partition/network file system, or make the initramfs
> clever/complicated enough to actually wait for /usr to come up.
>
> Also, the separation of /sbin and /usr/sbin is not just totally
> random; for non-admin users it makes them not appear in tab completion
> etc, which cleans up the command namespace a bit.

Another +1.

-- 

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into trouble of all kinds."
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[John Moser]

On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 3:01 PM, nick rundy  wrote:
> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it
> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\). Finding
> an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes
> sense to users. Fedora is considering a fix for this issue. I think Ubuntu
> should do the same.

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

System binaries for administrative and basic shell tools go into /bin
and /sbin.  Libraries go into /lib.  This is well-known, it is
documented, it is standard.  A system that cannot boot to the point of
mounting or giving a basic recovery console without /usr is not
functional.

We are not Windows.  We do not go breaking standards that are
well-defined and reasoned for a variety of flexible use cases because
we "think" it would be "better" in some invisible way.  You want to
find a binary?  Here, I've solved this problem for you, completely.
It's easy.  Do this:

luser$ which ls

luser$ which gnome-session

luser$ which synaptic

If it isn't in your path, then it's broken.  Something strange has
happened.  Yes, some applications (Mozilla...) do use a small shell
script that loads a binary from /usr/libexec/mozilla/bin/ and I find
this annoying and ill-designed.  That's part of what XULrunner was
supposed to fix:  a single Mozilla libs install to run all XUL apps.
I loudly proclaim that "reusable code" should not have one copy
installed as a separate library for each time it is reused, and that
this behavior is inconsistent and broken--that changing it will cause
the system to become nonfunctional means the brokenness isn't in where
we've installed it, but how the program was designed.

I wonder how many shell scripts will break when /bin/sh and /bin/bash
aren't there anymore.


>
> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[C de-Avillez]

On 02/11/11 00:25, Marius Gedminas wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 01, 2011 at 05:52:16PM -0400, Martin Pitt wrote:
>>> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
>>> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>>>  
>> That would mean that we need to drop the possibility to have /usr on a
>> separate partition/network file system, or make the initramfs
>> clever/complicated enough to actually wait for /usr to come up.
> Is a separate /usr currently fully supported in Ubuntu?
>

Yes, and has been for quite a while this way, at least since Edgy,
when I moved to Ubuntu. In fact, right now, I am running on a system
with many different mount points (including /usr).

The only thing of note I can remember was a regression when we
started with upstart, but it was quickly resolved.

..C..



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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Marius Gedminas]

On Tue, Nov 01, 2011 at 05:52:16PM -0400, Martin Pitt wrote:
> > Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
> > http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
> >  
> 
> That would mean that we need to drop the possibility to have /usr on a
> separate partition/network file system, or make the initramfs
> clever/complicated enough to actually wait for /usr to come up.

Is a separate /usr currently fully supported in Ubuntu?

http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken
argues rather convincingly that udev rules might be trying to access
things like /usr/share/misc/pci.ids during early boot, at least in
Fedora.

> Also, the separation of /sbin and /usr/sbin is not just totally
> random; for non-admin users it makes them not appear in tab completion
> etc, which cleans up the command namespace a bit.

Doesn't Ubuntu put both /usr/bin and /usr/sbin in $PATH by default for
all users?  My /etc/environment contains

  PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games"

and I'm quite sure I haven't edited it by hand.

Marius Gedminas
-- 
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-- The Spellsong War by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.


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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Scott Kitterman]

On 11/01/2011 01:42 PM, Jeff Hanson wrote:

What annoys me more is the third-party use of both /usr/local and
/opt.  I would rather get rid of /opt.  I consider /usr/local the
proper place for anything not handled by a package manager.


FHS has a very specific purpose for /opt and it's different than /usr/local.

Scott K

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Jeff Hanson]

What annoys me more is the third-party use of both /usr/local and
/opt.  I would rather get rid of /opt.  I consider /usr/local the
proper place for anything not handled by a package manager.

> From: Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals 
> Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 20:52:32 +0100
>
> In case you installed some application manually, it may be in
> /usr/local/bin or somewhere in /opt. This is so you can separate
> distribution stuff from other random stuff.

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Martin Pool]

I do think Lennart's arguments in

make sense.

On 2 November 2011 07:02, nick rundy  wrote:
> There are several situations where I need to find an executable. One that
> comes immediately to mind is when I need to specify what program to use to
> open an online stream and the program I want is not appearing in an offered
> list. So I need to go find the .exe.

This is a (set of) bugs that ought to be fixed in their own right:
ideally the correct program should just appear in the list, but when
it doesn't the user should not need to poke around on the filesystem
to find it.

> The $which command often can't find the exe because the
> exe has been placed somewhere else (hence why putting all this stuff in one
> place is a good idea).

If it's placed somewhere not on the default path, then it's either an
executable that is not normally intended to be run directly (some
things in /usr/lib), or it came out of a third party installer that
put it in /opt/ or /usr/local/randomprogram or /home.  Ubuntu moving
all the packaged programs doesn't seem very likely to fix that, but
 might help.

m

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Martin Pitt]

nick rundy [2011-11-01 15:01 -0400]:
> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it 
> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\)

In fact, Windows makes that really hard, as there is no standard
location for binaries. Each application ships its executables in its
own directory.

> Finding an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks
> organization that makes sense to users.

I doubt that many users actually care, and those wo do can use
"which". Also. all binaries a user is actually concerned with are in
/usr/bin (i. e. the ones you'd call to open documents with).

> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>  

That would mean that we need to drop the possibility to have /usr on a
separate partition/network file system, or make the initramfs
clever/complicated enough to actually wait for /usr to come up.

Also, the separation of /sbin and /usr/sbin is not just totally
random; for non-admin users it makes them not appear in tab completion
etc, which cleans up the command namespace a bit.

Martin

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Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Dan Trevino]

I'm not sure I agree that windows makes it easy to find executables.
They have the same situation with "system" binaries in different
places (/windows, /windows/system, /windows/system32, x64 vs i386 in
different places, etc, etc. and even less justification for those
choices.  Regardless, what windows does or does not do is irrelevant,
as is windows (sry ... couldn't resist).

FHS work is constantly being discussed.  If you feel you can make a
contribution, please:
http://wiki.debian.org/FilesystemHierarchyStandard

Dan
--
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On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 3:01 PM, nick rundy  wrote:
> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it
> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\). Finding
> an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes
> sense to users. Fedora is considering a fix for this issue. I think Ubuntu
> should do the same.
>
> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>
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RE: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[nick rundy]

There are several situations where I need to find an executable. One that comes 
immediately to mind is when I need to specify what program to use to open an 
online stream and the program I want is not appearing in an offered list. So I 
need to go find the .exe. At least this is how I have always gone about solving 
this problem. I have tried using the $which command but this rarely works for 
me. The $which command often can't find the exe because the exe has been placed 
somewhere else (hence why putting all this stuff in one place is a good idea).

> From: jonat...@starlingcottage.co.uk
> Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 19:46:37 +
> Subject: Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/
> To: nru...@hotmail.com
> 
> On 1 November 2011 19:01, nick rundy  wrote:
> > I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it
> > easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\). Finding
> > an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes
> > sense to users. Fedora is considering a fix for this issue. I think Ubuntu
> > should do the same.
> >
> > Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
> > http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
> >
> 
> Why do you want to "find" an executable? If you want to run it, just
> type it. If you want to know where it is (for whatever reason, not
> sure why if it's on the $PATH) then type $ which $command, e.g. $
> which bash -> /usr/bin/bash
> 
> Jonathon
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RE: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[nick rundy]

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html

Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 20:08:27 +0100
Subject: Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/
From: gregor.shap...@gmail.com
To: nru...@hotmail.com

The Link to the deviant article returned a 404
On Nov 1, 2011 8:02 PM, "nick rundy"  wrote:






I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it easy 
to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\). Finding an 
executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes sense 
to users. Fedora is considering a fix for this issue. I think Ubuntu should do 
the same.


Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea: 
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
 

  

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[J Fernyhough]

On 1 November 2011 19:01, nick rundy  wrote:
> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it
> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\). Finding
> an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes
> sense to users. Fedora is considering a fix for this issue. I think Ubuntu
> should do the same.
>
> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>

Why do you want to "find" an executable? If you want to run it, just
type it. If you want to know where it is (for whatever reason, not
sure why if it's on the $PATH) then type $ which $command, e.g. $
which bash -> /usr/bin/bash

Jonathon

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals]

Hi,

2011/11/1 nick rundy :
> And one thing Windows does well is make it
> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\).

This is a joke, right?

> Finding
> an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes
> sense to users.

You may find the "whereis" command useful. Eg.,
|   $ whereis gedit
|   gedit: /usr/bin/gedit /usr/lib/gedit /usr/share/gedit
/usr/share/man/man1/gedit.1.gz

Most (99.99%) binaries should be in /usr/bin. Some core binaries are
in /bin (for technical reasons) and some system administration
binaries may be in /sbin (for historical reasons). I'd be happy about
an unification here, but as you can see it's not a trivial matter.

In case you installed some application manually, it may be in
/usr/local/bin or somewhere in /opt. This is so you can separate
distribution stuff from other random stuff.

Hope this helps,

-- 
Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals (RainCT)
Free Software Developer

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Allison Randal]

On 11/01/2011 03:20 PM, Cosme Domínguez wrote:
> 
> But it requires a lot of work that I think should start first in Debian.

And, is already being discussed in Debian (lengthy thread):

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/10/msg00157.html

Allison

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Alexander Etter]

On Nov 1, 2011, at 15:01, nick rundy  wrote:

> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it 
> easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\). Finding an 
> executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes 
> sense to users. Fedora is considering a fix for this issue. I think Ubuntu 
> should do the same.
> 
> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea: 
> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
>  
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Hi, learn about file permissions. In a terminal, cd to the directory you are 
looking for an executable, then use ls. Try man ls for more info, but ls -l ( l 
as in lamba) will show what is executable and lots of other info. 
Let me know if/ how it works out. 
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Cosme Domínguez]

I think that's a good idea.

But it requires a lot of work that I think should start first in Debian.

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Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[nick rundy]

I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it easy 
to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\). Finding an 
executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks organization that makes sense 
to users. Fedora is considering a fix for this issue. I think Ubuntu should do 
the same.

Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea: 
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print
 
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