Right now, /bin/dir and /bin/ls are 70-80KB duplicates of each other that differ only in a couple of bits (/bin/dir is /bin/ls -C). Request that /bin/dir be a hardlinked /bin/ls with /bin/ls patched to set ls_mode. # diff ls-dir.c ls-ls.c 2c2 < int ls_mode = LS_MULTI_COL; --- > int ls_mode = LS_LS; if argv[0] is dir, then LS_MULTI_COL otherwise leave at default. It is true 70KB isn't a big deal nowdays, but some folks do use /bin for recovery purposes so it can sometimes be on small, separate, partitions or placed on a floppy.
Why don't you suggest such stuff upstream?
Oh, is this an upstream thing? Thought you folks were the ones who'd patched it. Sorry.
we patch very few things in coreutils ... i push almost everything upstream first you can send an e-mail here: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils thanks !