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dxrobertson

Member

Registered: 2017-05-04

Posts: 232  

/usr/bin/x11 symlink to /usr/bin/X11?

Is there a reason for this symlink, that points to itself?  Seems odd to me, an easy way for code to get stuck in a recursive infinite loop.

dxrobertson@dxr-acer:/usr/bin$ ls -l -a | grep X11
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root           1 May  3  2017 X11 -> .

dxrobertson@dxr-acer:/usr/bin$ 
dxrobertson@dxr-acer:/usr/bin$ cd X11
dxrobertson@dxr-acer:/usr/bin/X11$ cd X11
dxrobertson@dxr-acer:/usr/bin/X11/X11$ cd X11
dxrobertson@dxr-acer:/usr/bin/X11/X11/X11$ 

I noticed it doing a search in files using kde kate.  It became stuck in a recursive search inside /usr/bin/X11.  Seems kate is programmed to handle such a situation because it eventually quit and left that directory search and continued on.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: /usr/bin/x11 symlink to /usr/bin/X11?

I don't know the answer, but I've seen similar recursive symlinks in various locations and various distributions over the years.

emanym

Member

Registered: 2018-04-08

Posts: 36  

Re: /usr/bin/x11 symlink to /usr/bin/X11?

I'm guessing X11-related binaries where in a /usr/bin/X11 or /usr/bin/X11R6 directory originally? Any old script or program might still expect to find something there...

According to my x11-common changelog:

xorg (6.8.2-34) breezy; urgency=low
 ...
 * Move Xorg symlink from /usr/bin/X11 to /usr/bin, as the former is becoming
    a symlink to the latter with the new x-common.  Ditto X symlink.
 ...
 -- Daniel Stone <daniel.stone@ubuntu.com>  Mon, 27 Jun 2005 19:10:24 +1000

Took me a while to find that one too, there are many symlinks mentioned in those changelogs ;-)

dxrobertson

Member

Registered: 2017-05-04

Posts: 232  

Re: /usr/bin/x11 symlink to /usr/bin/X11?

Now I see.  I can use /usr/bin/X11/xvinfo, for example.  Yes, seems there once was an actual /usr/bin/X11 directory.  Just dont try to navigate into it.

I never noticed a link pointing in this particular configuration before, makes perfect sense now.