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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

#81

Post by agumonkey »

corndoge wrote: post #66
agumonkey wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand that, I'm not a young mind anymore, and I get that most of these are pointless superficial tricks. I spend most of my days venting about the state of computing (especially since web2.0 came and replaced a lot of stuff with bloated regressions in many offices) But I considered readline a good addition, not a waste of time and neurons. ps: I stopped using zsh/fish, my emacs theme is the vanilla the…

I work half as fast without fish completions. matters to some people

Maybe I shouldn't have included this comment after the `pointless superficial tricks` :)

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

#83

Post by dekhn »

mprovost wrote: post #51
dekhn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

personally, I don't have interest in zsh because bash is the default shell in Linux, which is the UNIX system I use (I find mac's unix to be really a weird variant). Mac switching to zsh is just more evidence they're diverting from the mainstream.

Apple switched to zsh because newer versions of bash are licensed under GPLv3.

I know what the reason is. I don't care. I use GPLv3 and have no interest in an OS that doesn't. You can run bash on windows or compile it yourself on any platform. microsoft even distributes it with windows.

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

#84

Post by rnd0 »

arp242 wrote: post #72
MisterTea wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how many other greybeards that cut their teeth on SunOS prefer FreeBSD over Linux today? Not a greybeard but I certainly reach for a BSD when I want to "use Unix". Linux is a quivering basket case that cant decide if its Unix, MacOS or Windows.

> Linux is a quivering basket case that cant decide if its Unix, MacOS or Windows. A more positive spin on this would be that it combines the best of all three. Personally I'm very much in the Unix camp though, and have the proverbial greybeard long enough to trip over. But I can see the value in the "Linux way" of doing things. Actually, I mostly just use Linux myself these days, mainly because of software compatibi…

>A more positive spin on this would be that it combines the best of all three.

A more accurate spin would be that it does a half-assed job of implementing features from each but runs off half way to chase after some other shiny feature.

That's the virtue of BSD; it's simple, it's documented it's complete (in features and feature implementation).

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

#85

Post by gigatexal »

trasz wrote: post #79
gigatexal wrote: post #30

Why not just go to Bash or ZSH?

Bash has prohibitive license. What I've heard about zsh is that integrating it with FreeBSD build system would be non-trivial.

Ahh ok. Didn’t know about the license issue. The CVE idea is also very valid. Thanks for clarifying everyone.

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

#86

Post by azinman2 »

dekhn wrote: post #77
azinman2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know he was a he?

without certainty, prior probabilities suggest a technically inclined research leader would be male.

And perpetuating these biases is what makes it feel lonely and not welcoming to be a woman in engineering.

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

#87

Post by vermaden »

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.

Depends how you use it.

If you just want to execute it then it is a footgun - using only the !command syntax.

If you use the !command:p syntax then you are just printing what command has been executed instead of invoking it.

Example.

    % uname
    FreeBSD
    
    % !uname
    uname
    FreeBSD
    
    % !uname:p
    uname
    
    %

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

#89

Post by vermaden »

Bluecobra wrote: post #44
kloch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think the Slowlaris moniker was not due to Solaris itself, but the speed of their SPARC processors. I used to work very closely with x86 Solaris for financial trading and it was performant (and stable!) on Intel hardware at the time (circa 2010). At the time Solaris 10 was feee as in beer. When Oracle took over they got rid of this and wanted $1K per CPU socket per year on non Sun/Oracle hardware. Needless to say e…

I am not sure when Slowlaris term was introduced but I tried OpenSolaris many times on the same hardware that I run FreeBSD and it felt slower for each task ... from the boot process to typical tasks involved.

But I always liked SUN Solaris for its features and solutions.

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

#90

Post by wahern »

jmclnx wrote: post #65
xenophonf wrote: post #27

A die-hard tcsh user myself, I mourn the end of an era, but has anyone done serious scripting in the C shell? I jokingly call it a sin in the eyes of the LORD, but seriously, it really, really sucks compared to even just the POSIX shell. It's probably time for me to finally give into Bash or zsh or something equally modern. Might be nice to get access to all of those shell completion hooks some tools have—not because…

I am sad to hear FreeBSD is changing root from tcsh to sh (FreeBSD moved from csh to tcsh a while ago). It was one of the things that made FreeBSD unique. I guess the got sick of hearing this question: "can I change the root shell to bash ?". I think they were the last holdout of the BSDs. But to me, if you care what root's shell is, you are doing something wrong by using root way too often.

It is an absolutely trivial thing. Nobody should be making decisions about whether to use FreeBSD based on such trivialities.

That said, it really was damned annoying. I like to port my software to AIX, FreeBSD, Linux/glibc, Linux/musl, NetBSD, macOS, OpenBSD, and Solaris. All of them use a Bourne-like root shell except FreeBSD, and every time I go to upgrade a FreeBSD VM or build a new one I seem to always trip over that at some point. If I used FreeBSD regularly I wouldn't care as much--I'd change the default, or know how to achieve what I want more directly. But not being familiar with FreeBSD, I always end up in a root shell poking around trying to remember how upgrades work, which tools I need to find documentation for, etc, and end up cursing csh for compounding the mental burden.

From my perspective, changing the default root shell is a benefit, albeit very minor. Though, if FreeBSD (and NetBSD and OpenBSD, for that matter) began publishing official VM images, that'd be worth so much more to me.

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