Com2Kid's Journal: Linux won't let me run apps in rndm directories? ed: me=stpd

So I was being lazy and trying to use my usr/home/desktop directory for app compilation, but lo and behold, I can't run executables from there. I was copy pasting them in Windows explorer to cygwin\bin and dropping to DOS to get them to work, but now I get it.

Irritating but it keeps the desktop neat and tidy I guess. No wonder *nix users have so much troubles understanding how Windows users use things, heh, you all are used to life being too organized! :-p

edit: waaait, where did the files I dropped there go? Windows really needs to get hardlinks (or whatever they are called) integrated into the UI, they are so useful, but I am not quite used to them yet. *sigh* Great for organizing MP3 collections when a song fits in more than one catagory.

(us Windows users just have to make an actual copy of the song and place it, either that or use a third party utility! Ouch!)

Double edit: OOOH! So THAT is why the instructor is always typing ./a

Very weird, doesn't Bash check the current directory for executables, then the path? Odd that it would check path statement first and then umm, nothing.

3x edit: This is one of those things that if I hadn't seen my instructor do it and wondered "wtf" I would've been lost for a looong time on.

./a

[limpdawg]

The reason the shell doesn't check the current directory for a program is for security reasons. Someone might have access to a directory and make their own trojaned version of ls, and if the shell ran it when root did an ls in that directory, then bad things would happen.

Re:./a

[Com2Kid]

Oh yes, I tend to forget, ls in an actuall command in Linux, not integrated into the shell.

More orthogonal that way I guess.

Re:./a

[Cyberdyne]

Oh yes, I tend to forget, ls in an actuall command in Linux, not integrated into the shell.

Depending on the shell, it can be a built-in function - particularly in the standalone or "recovery" shells, like sash (StandAlone SHell) and busybox - but the risk that would expose you to isn't restricted to ls. A sysadmin could be examining a suspect directory and try loading the mail client to query the user about it, or fire up grep to search for something, or an archiver to compress the files rather than delet

Re:./a

[Com2Kid]

Ah yes, another oddity, applications actually setup to run without changing to its directory. ^_^

Though nowdays windows tends to path the living daylights out of everything (and I think Winword is accessible even though I do not believe it is in the path statement. . . .), I remember having to setup a C:\BAT directory in DOS and put .bat files to change directories to all my programs in there.

Re:./a

[Cyberdyne]

Though nowdays windows tends to path the living daylights out of everything (and I think Winword is accessible even though I do not believe it is in the path statement. . . .), I remember having to setup a C:\BAT directory in DOS and put .bat files to change directories to all my programs in there.

Yep, there's an alternative to the PATH variable - in the Registry, an entry named "Path" in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cu r rentVersion\App Paths\Winword.exe" tells Windows where to find the