On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 09:31:31AM +0100, Pierre Couderc wrote: > On 2/21/19 9:15 AM, Reco wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 09:07:09AM +0100, Pierre Couderc wrote: > > > Why /usr/sbin is not in my root $PATH ?
Because you upgraded to buster (or unstable), and Debian in its infinite wisdom has changed the behavior of su between stretch and buster. > > Make a habit of using 'su -', as this behaviour is here to stay. Or use one of several other workarounds, for example putting /usr/sbin and /sbin into your regular user account's PATH. > > It's a change in Debian, see #833256. > > There are two su utilities, from 'shadow' and from 'util-linux'. > > Preserving user's environment unless '-' is specified is a feature of > > util-linux's su. > > > Thnk you very much. This is the answer I needed. Sorry for the noise ;) It's not noise. This is going to be the number one support issue for buster, I just know it. This question is going to come up repeatedly. The su change breaks *so* much. Red Hatters have apparently been living with this behavior for years, and they came up with the "su -" workaround. And hey, if that works for them, great. The problem with "su -" is that it strips out *all* of your environment, *and* it changes your working directory to /root. So, some things which work perfectly well in stretch (with "su") will no longer work in buster (with "su -"). Example 1: $ make $ su - # make install # fails because you're no longer in the build dir Example 2: $ export LANG=something LESS=-X ... $ su - # man something # your environment settings have been lost I haven't upgraded to buster yet, so I haven't had to make any changes to my own environment yet, but I suspect I'll be adding /usr/sbin and /sbin to my regular account's PATH. That will break the smallest amount of stuff for my usage patterns, as I will be able to continue using a normal "su" which will retain my environment and my working directory.
