[Pythonmac-SIG] installer and .profile

[William Kyngesburye]

On Apr 24, 2006, at 9:55 AM, Ronald Oussoren wrote:

>
> On Monday, April 24, 2006, at 04:37PM, William Kyngesburye  
> <woklist at kyngchaos.com> wrote:
>
>> I just noticed a small issue with the new universal installer.  It
>> adds a path to the python bin folder to the user's ~/.profile.
>>
>> 1. The Apple-default bash shell doesn't read .profile (doesn't for
>> me). (I think tcsh does, but I always used .login back then)
>
> Bash does read .profile, unless a .bash_profile exists.
>
Ah, well, I was always a little confused by all the levels of shell  
init scripts.

>>
>> 2. If it doesn't exist, .profile gets created with root ownership,
>> since the installer must autorize to install.
>
> That's a bug.
>
>>
>> Since a user can choose their shell, maybe it shouldn't be trying to
>> add to the user's path, but just tell the user that's what they need
>> to do.  Or if there is some way for the installer to figure out the
>> user's default shell (I know it's a setting in the netinfo database
>> for each user), the installer could intelligently edit the correct
>> shell init (ie .bash_profile).
>
> The script is smart enough to edit the shell configuration of the  
> users shell.
>
I guess this would be a bug also, then?  I have a .bash_profile, yet  
it added the .profile instead of editing my .bash_profile.

> And BTW. we have documentation about what the user should do to
> add the right directory to their PATH. It turns out most users don't
> read the documentation or are unix-illiterate enough to not being
> able to perform the changes that are required. Automating this task
> is a lot friendlier to those users.

Not in the readme that is on the installer disk image.  If it's in  
the documentation after install, at least that much should be  
duplicated in the readme since it's an install thing.  Or at least  
mention in the readme what the installer does in the user's  
environment (some people might get a little touchy about having user  
files quietly modified by an installer).

-----
William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos at kyngchaos.com>
http://www.kyngchaos.com/

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