There is such a database: it's the filesystem. The system package manager puts executables into /usr/bin and friends. Homebrew on Macs defaults to /usr/local/bi

There is such a database: it's the filesystem. The system package manager puts executables into /usr/bin and friends. Homebrew on Macs defaults to /usr/local/bin. > Don't you think that would be great? No. It's still not clear to me what this layer you're proposing would solve, relative to the current state. Other than that now every program would have to think about this new abstraction. As somebody pointed out in a parallel comment, you can approximate exactly what you're trying to pitch without writing any C: just set "export PATH=~/.linpath", and then write some helpers to manage the contents of that directory. I think if you tried to build a system like this you'd start to realize that you're reinventing what PATH already enables, with a lot more custom glue.