[Gllug] What's so good about Debian?

[Jack Bertram]

* Rev Simon Rumble <simon at rumble.net> [031009 13:50]:
> On Thu 09 Oct, FORSTER, David bloviated thus:
> 
> > I had to precede it with a './' and still haven't figured out why.
> 
> Just like DOS, it needs to be in your PATH to be able to type it
> without giving the location.  The ./ is saying "current directory",
> i.e., it's equivilent to saying /home/johnsmith/

Actually, in DOS it doesn't need to be in your PATH, as the current
directory is always checked.  In Linux the current directory needs to be
explicitly in the PATH.

The PATH is usually set in /etc/profile or your shell's startup files.
Note that most distros include "./" in the PATH for normal users but not
for root.  This is to reduce the danger that malicious binaries can do -
e.g., if there's an executable shell script called "ls" in a user's home
dir which actually adds said user to the wheel group before doing an
"ls".

jack

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