[PATCH 2/2] basedir: Add XDG_BIN_HOME and XDG_BIN_DIRS

[Lennart Poettering]

On Di, 29.08.17 18:42, Johannes Löthberg (johannes at kyriasis.com) wrote:

> +        <listitem>
> +          <para>
> +            There is a set of preference ordered base directories relative to
> +            which executable files should be searched.  This set of directories
> +            is defined by the environment variable <literal>$XDG_BIN_DIRS</literal>.
> +          </para>
> +        </listitem>

This appears redundant, given that there's already $PATH which pretty
much does this. I think instead of the above there should be a brief
comment, that $PATH is the search counterpart here...

>          <listitem>
>            <para>
>              There is a set of preference ordered base directories relative to
> @@ -122,6 +145,12 @@
>        <literal>$XDG_CONFIG_HOME</literal> is either not set or empty, a default equal to
>        <literal>$HOME</literal>/.config should be used.
>      </para>
> +    <para>
> +      <literal>$XDG_BIN_HOME</literal> defines the base directory relative to
> +      which user-specific executable files should be stored. If
> +      <literal>$XDG_BIN_HOME</literal> is either not set or empty, a default equal to
> +      <literal>$HOME</literal>/.local/bin should be used.
> +    </para>

A problem with ~/.local/bin is that $HOME might be shared between
systems of different archs, and thus any compiled binaries dropped in
this dir might cause problems when used from other systems. I don't
think this issue is reason enough not to have ~/.local/bin, in
particular as many distros and systems already have it and it is a
good idea to document what is already established, but I am very sure
the spec should document the issue at least, and maybe suggests that
scripts rather than arch-specific binaries are preferably placed
there, or that if arch-specific binaries are placed there $HOME
becomes arch-specific to some degree, which is probably not even a
problem in 99.9% of the cases, and hence acceptable in the local case.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat