Re: [TECH TOPIC] Kernel documentation - update and future directions

[Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>]

On Tue, 2025-09-02 at 12:58 -0600, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> > 
> > The idea is not to override the search path: instead, to use it to
> > check if the user installed other /usr/bin/python3.* files (or on
> > some other part of PATH). Most distributions nowadays come with 
> > multiple python versions. I can't see a downside (*) of not using 
> > a newer version that the user had installed on his system and
> > has it on PATH.
> 
> But overriding the path is exactly what this would be doing.  It doesn't
> seem right to say "we know better than you do" and circumvent the
> configured path; the user may well have reasons for setting things up
> the way they did.

Absolutely! Please don't ever do this.

For example, use case we have: using nix-shell to lock down the software
used to build, for reproducible builds and similar reasons. Without --
pure, PATH may still contain (last!) software from the system itself,
but it should basically never be used.

johannes