On 7/18/06, Mat Schaffer <schapht / gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 17, 2006, at 3:29 PM, John Johnson wrote:
> > You can change path info in /etc/profile to make it system-wide.
> > As for ~/.profile, I tried all the shells listed in /etc/shells,
> > and none
> > of them ran the .profile I created as a test.
> >
> > I don't see why UNIX like systems have to have so many bin (and other)
> > directories. Let's see, there is /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin,
> > /opt/local/bin, the same variants for sbin, plus executables in
> > /usr/libexec, /usr/local/libexec and (for shame) /etc.
>
> It's in our blood.  Programmers like to categorize things.  The
> downside is that a lot of apps like to tread all over that
> categorization.  Ah... life.
> -Mat

Paraphrasing from the green book (LAH) and adding a last one of my own:

* /bin -- commands needed for minimal system operability
* /sbin -- commands for booting, repairing, or recovering the system
* /usr/local/bin -- local executables (site-specific)
* /usr/local/sbin -- statically-linked local (site-specific) system
maintenance commands
* /usr/sbin -- less essential commands for system admin and repair
* ~/bin -- your own commands :)

---John