On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 09:12:55PM -0600, Michael Torrie wrote: > > I guess my question is, what do other OS's and distros actually put in > libexec? On my machine, things like xscreensavers seem to be there. > Executables in their own right, but not intended to be run directly. > That kind of thing perhaps.
You have it exactly right. Another way to think of it is as a sort of /usr/bin that isn't on users' paths. I'm not familiar enough with the issue to know all of the arguments, but people in favor of libexec point out that executables aren't libraries and that the linker shouldn't have to see them. I think people also want to be able to limit the number of files that accidentally have the execute bit set (which is surprisingly common); on a system with libexec, the package system can raise red flags whenever files in lib end up being accidentally executable. These are sort of minor arguments, and I guess I'm still surprised at why someone on either side would get really worked up about it. -- Andrew McNabb http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/ PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55 8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868 -------------------- BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. ___________________________________________________________________ List Info (unsubscribe here): http://uug.byu.edu/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
