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FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

cgit.freebsd.org

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Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#31

Post by readingnews »

kloch wrote: post #24
readingnews wrote: post #6

I am not a freebsd user, been on linux since 1992, but most of the time I read something about freebsd users and it seems like they want to be some older unix, like Solaris or True64 or something.

Pre-1992 it was SunOS and yes that is exactly what we want (without all the security holes). SunOS was BSD and Nirvana as far as Unix goes. Solaris was SysV and quickly earned the nickname "Slowlaris". For me FreeBSD is the functional descendant of SunOS. As for Linux I first tried it out in 1993 and was appalled that command line switches for most standard Unix utils had been arbitrarily remapped. Tried FreeBSD 1.0…

> I wonder how many other greybeards that cut their teeth on SunOS prefer FreeBSD over Linux today?

That could be an interesting question. I certainly cut my teeth on SunOS and Irix. I much prefer modern Linux.

Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#32

Post by dekhn »

agumonkey wrote: post #28
dekhn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he was pissed! and, really didn't like terminal colors when you ran 'ls' (so I showed how to unalias ls) At this point I don't want to learn any new tricks, either. I'm sticking with bash for the rest of my life.

what kind of research ? was it computing related or something really different ? I'm quite shocked I'm not 20 something either, I'm not chasing new shiny.. but a simple history access (arrows or search) is not an invasive disruptive toy feature.. alas

biomedical research, but the person I was helping "had written a kernel disk driver for VAX BSD back in the 80s" and I think they wanted things to more or less stay the same as BSD in the 80s. Which, as far as wishes go, isn't terrible.

Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#33

Post by dekhn »

severino wrote: post #29
dekhn wrote: post #11

We once upgraded a major research department from csh to tcsh (while also migrating most users to bash). A senior leader complained that when they hit the up arrow, the last command they typed showed up. I explained how to disable readline

I wonder what he was using the up arrow key for in the shell.

In those days people mainly used ! expansion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_shell#History. I know many people who are incredibly good at using ! expansion to edit previous commands ("change that command 5 lines ago to rm -rf this other folder") but it's a bit of a footgun.

Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#35

Post by jdboyd »

dekhn wrote: post #25
agumonkey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That says a thing or too about habits. Was he pissed or was it just a light comment ? I'd be sad to see an educated person refuse interesting new tricks (readline causes no regression or loss right ?)

he was pissed! and, really didn't like terminal colors when you ran 'ls' (so I showed how to unalias ls) At this point I don't want to learn any new tricks, either. I'm sticking with bash for the rest of my life.

I've been trying to stick with bash for at least 20 years (I did have a brief tcsh phase before that) since a time when sticking with it meant having to install it on every unix system I touched. However, now that MacOS defaults to zsh, I'm starting to wonder if I should summon up the effort to change again.

Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#36

Post by reacharavindh »

agumonkey wrote: post #21
dekhn wrote: post #11

We once upgraded a major research department from csh to tcsh (while also migrating most users to bash). A senior leader complained that when they hit the up arrow, the last command they typed showed up. I explained how to disable readline

That says a thing or too about habits. Was he pissed or was it just a light comment ? I'd be sad to see an educated person refuse interesting new tricks (readline causes no regression or loss right ?)

It's delicate. The noob me chased after new tricks with much more enthusiasm than the current me. Over time, priorities change, and now I just want to get stuff done and for tools to get out of the way. I'd appreciate new tricks that bring quite a lot of benefit to my workflow, but the little tricks I'd rather let fly past me.

If the tools such as base environment changes way too often, I'd be annoyed as well - not because I don't know how to make the colours go away or set up the proper aliases - but the fact that I need to do it and pause my actual work.

Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#37

Post by jolmg »

jdboyd wrote: post #35
dekhn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he was pissed! and, really didn't like terminal colors when you ran 'ls' (so I showed how to unalias ls) At this point I don't want to learn any new tricks, either. I'm sticking with bash for the rest of my life.

I've been trying to stick with bash for at least 20 years (I did have a brief tcsh phase before that) since a time when sticking with it meant having to install it on every unix system I touched. However, now that MacOS defaults to zsh, I'm starting to wonder if I should summon up the effort to change again.

I think the most noticeable difference is that `$foo` doesn't word-split unless you do `${=foo}`. Beyond that, I don't think one would notice they were using zsh instead of bash. In most ways, zsh is pretty much a superset of bash.

Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#38

Post by jolmg »

dekhn wrote: post #33
severino wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what he was using the up arrow key for in the shell.

In those days people mainly used ! expansion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_shell#History . I know many people who are incredibly good at using ! expansion to edit previous commands ("change that command 5 lines ago to rm -rf this other folder") but it's a bit of a footgun.

Right, but the up arrow didn't get in their way, right? So why get mad?

I imagine that how it worked for them before is that the up arrow would move the cursor to the previous line into the output of the previous command, while feeding the arrow key escape sequences to the shell prompt as part of the command. IOW, a pretty useless and annoying key right? Why even press it? How did they notice readline?

Re: FreeBSD switches the default root shell from csh to sh

#39

Post by breakfastduck »

WalterGR wrote: post #3

In the recent history sh(1) has gain the missing features for it to become a usable interractive shell: - command completion - ... Too much bloat for my tastes.

I mean, preferences are preferences but you can hardly call command completion 'bloat'
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