[MacPorts] #24930: Update PATH environment variable for all users

[MacPorts]

#24930: Update PATH environment variable for all users
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 Reporter:  sorin.sbarnea@…          |       Owner:  macports-tickets@…                   
     Type:  enhancement              |      Status:  new                                  
 Priority:  Normal                   |   Milestone:  MacPorts Future                      
Component:  base                     |     Version:  1.8.2                                
 Keywords:                           |        Port:                                       
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Changes (by ryandesign@…):

 * cc: 1handle@…, ryandesign@… (added)
  * milestone:  => MacPorts Future


Comment:

 Replying to [comment:5 sorin.sbarnea@…]:
 > when I installed latest release of MacPorts (10.8.2) on OSX 10.6 it did
 not update the path.

 It should have. If it did not, we need further information from you to be
 able to diagnose why.

 > Also please be aware that we expect to change the paths for all *users*
 not only current user, specially because on OSX most users are not using
 root account.

 I'm afraid your expectations do not match how MacPorts currently works. We
 do currently only attempt to modify the profile of the currently-logged-in
 user. We do need to document this better, as explored further in duplicate
 #28882. Certainly we do not expect the user to be logged in as the root
 user; the root user is disabled by default on Mac OS X and there is
 probably no reason why a user should need to enable it. It might, however,
 be required that the user installing MacPorts is an administrator; I'm not
 sure.

 > I think that appending to /etc/paths is a *good* and *safe* approach. I
 did not find any issues by having the macports paths to the end of the
 path.
 >
 > Replacing OS utilities is risky and can break other OS components on OS
 X so using MacPorts too *add* missing utilities should be the default. If
 somebody really wants to replace them he can change the order. Also the
 installer could inform the user about this.

 We have no plans to change the fact that MacPorts prepends its prefix to
 the path. This is the expected behavior of most of our users.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/24930#comment:7>
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