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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.nla.gov.au!act.news.telstra.net!imci3!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!cs.utk.edu!cs!larson From: larson@cs.utk.edu (Chris Larson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Is replacing /bin/sh with bash recommended? Date: 23 Mar 1996 23:36:46 GMT Organization: CS Labs, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Lines: 80 Message-ID: <LARSON.96Mar23183646@tyco.cs.utk.edu> References: <4ih5qb$lae@blackice.winternet.com> <4ik5p6$qm6@helena.mt.net> <DoJrqo.6F9@twwells.com> <4j0sto$scs@calypso.bns.com.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: tyco.cs.utk.edu In-reply-to: mike@calypso.bns.com.au's message of 23 Mar 1996 23:34:56 +1030 In article <4j0sto$scs@calypso.bns.com.au> mike@calypso.bns.com.au (Michael Talbot-Wilson) writes: :> :>>In article <4ik5p6$qm6@helena.mt.net>, :>>Nate Williams <nate@sneezy.sri.com> wrote: :>>: In article <4ih5qb$lae@blackice.winternet.com>, :>>: John D. Boggs <jdb@robigo.winternet.com> wrote: :>>: >What sort of nasties (if any) should I expect if I replace /bin/sh :>>: >with bash in FreeBSD-2.1.0? :>>: :>>: Big ones. :> :>>This is a load of shit. Since I converted to NetBSD/FreeBSD on the :>>various machines I've used over the last two odd years, I have :>>*always* replaced /bin/sh with a statically linked bash. Except :> :>The first two things you need to do after installing FreeBSD are :>(1) compile bash; (2) compile tcsh. The latter because adduser :>and some humans have a quaint preference for a C-shell, but you :>want to give them a civilised environment with good line editing :>/ history control. The third is to compile GNU fileutils with :>the color patch for ls. It's a pity this is not all done for us :>in the distribution. The default user shell (csh) is a shocker. :> Why is it a shocker that csh is the default shell? It's the basic shell available on all BSD systems I've used. Also, csh is in /bin. What happens when you boot in single user mode to fix a problem and /usr/local/bin/tcsh isn't available? I love tcsh and always use it if it's available, but csh is a good default. BTW, I can't stand the color "ls". It's annoying. ls -F tells me what I need to know. The only time I've used it was when I first began experimenting with Linux. Those might be good options but I don't agree that these should be part of the default distribution. Alot of what I like about FreeBSD is what I see as a good median between having too much (Slackware) and being stripped down/bare bones (NetBSD). These OS's all have their places and good points, tho not everybody agrees on what those are. :>>There is only one reason to not use bash instead of the standard :>>shell and that's that bash is about 40% bigger. Still, there's no :> :>That is not the reason. Slackware (a Linux distribution) comes with :>/bin/sh a symlink to bash. My guess is that there is some political :>reason. You need a small shell for use during the actual installation, :>when it might need to be on a floppy. Here I agree. Also I think there might be some POSIX criteria involved but don't quote me on that. Slackware is what one person(group) of people see as a good, usable system. For what they do, sh -> bash works. It might not for everybody. Why do you think there are so many Linux distributions in the first place? :> :>>way I'd use the existing shell; in a word, it sucks, it always has :>>sucked, and probably will never get any better -- because the :>>*reason* for using it instead of bash is that it's smaller. Add :>>the stuff to make it as useful as bash and it'll be as big as :>>bash... at which point, you might just as well use bash. :> :>Er... the bash maintainer says bash is "too big and too slow". It's :>not a lot more feature-laden than pdksh, which is a lot smaller. A UNIX system is a living, breathing entity, two are rarely identical. What works one place might not be ideal or even functional under different circumstances somewhere else. I don't see why people get so angry that free software wasn't tailored to their expectations and needs. Chris -- Chris Larson larson@cs.utk.edu Lab Assistant-Backups Computer Science Dept. University of Tennessee- Knoxville