Once upon a time, Lennart Poettering <mzerqung(a)0pointer.de> said:
/usr/sbin is an invention of Linux.
Hmm, I think Solaris had it, and I know DEC Unix had it.
IIRC /sbin came about for static bins, but then also to move config
binaries out of /etc. The bins not needed for early system startup
moved to /usr/sbin. I don't recall anything in /usr/sbin ever being
static. /usr/sbin also got other programs that had been in /usr/lib
(such as sendmail) when cleaning up.
We really should get rid of the destinction, and make all of /bin,
/sbin, /usr/sbin a symlink to /usr/bin, and then never bother again
about $PATH orders and namespace collisions...
As I said before, there's still some consolehelper stuff that requires
entries in both /usr/bin and /usr/sbin to work.
--
Chris Adams <linux(a)cmadams.net>