With the release of setpath v1_8 (and later), it has become apparent that the /usr/local/bin area of many systems has become cluttered and dusty. If you install setpath v1_8 (or later) on your system and begin to see strange problems with things that "used to work", you should take a close look at the files in /usr/local/bin as a potential culprit.
What is setpath? It is a Fermi User Environment (FUE) utility which sets your PATH to a reasonable starting value, so that you can expect to find the "basic" utilities that you need. It replaces the old method of sourcing the /usr/local/etc/setpath.[c]sh rc files; instead, as part of logging in, you "setup setpath". (This happens transparently for users whose login scripts "setup login" or "setup shrc").
Why is it causing problems? The setpath.[c]sh scripts did a rather poor job of ensuring that your environment included the things you'd need, in the correct order. The setpath product, on the other hand, does a much better job of setting your PATH and MANPATH to a "reasonable" value. In particular, it places /usr/local/bin near the front of your PATH, so that the Fermi local utilities will occlude any system utilities of the same name. (We presume that if your system *has* a Fermi-specific local replacement, you (or your system administrator) wants you to be using it!).
Unfortunately, on many systems /usr/local/bin has not, until now, been included in your PATH (or, was included at the end of the PATH, where system utilities would preempt the Fermi utilities of the same name). On these systems, the dusty moldy old forgotten binaries in /usr/local/bin are being used for the first time (or the first time in a long time) -- and may be breaking things.
Things to look for include:
If you would like help diagnosing problems that you think are related to /usr/local/bin and a recent vintage of setpath, please feel free to contact ups@fnal.gov (the group who maintains ups and related FUE tools).
lauri loebel carpenter, for the ups support team, ups@fnal.gov