From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752686AbZG3URZ (ORCPT ); Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:17:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751750AbZG3URY (ORCPT ); Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:17:24 -0400 Received: from atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz ([195.113.26.193]:60744 "EHLO atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751228AbZG3URY (ORCPT ); Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:17:24 -0400 Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:17:20 +0200 From: Pavel Machek To: Jonathan Reed Cc: Geoffrey Thomas , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] Return ENOEXEC, not ENOENT, if a binary's or script's interpreter doesn't exist. Message-ID: <20090730201720.GA30001@elf.ucw.cz> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Warning: Reading this can be dangerous to your mental health. User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu 2009-07-30 13:08:58, Jonathan Reed wrote: >> NAK. Current behaviour is useful -- and it is really file thats >> missing. > > The current behavior is only useful to people who have an understanding > of how interpreters and binaries work on Linux. The average desktop > user Proposed behaviour is useless to everyone. > does not have that understanding. The average user gets an error message > such as: > > /usr/bin/foo: No such file or directory. > > They then go and look at /usr/bin/foo, find that it exists, and are > extremely confused. ENOEXEC is confusing, too. It will have x bit. >> Please improve manpage instead. > > What manpage do you suggest needs improvement? execve(2)? That >again execve, I'd say. > requires an average user to realize that they need to go look at the > execve(2) manpage. The average user is not going to realize that. Improve shells to provide more helpful error message? Pavel -- (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek (cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html