Re: "default shell" [was: Re: CVS commit: src/usr.sbin/user]

[Alistair Crooks <agc%pkgsrc.org@localhost>]

On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 07:44:29PM +0200, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Sep 2006, Alistair Crooks wrote:
> >>>Last I saw of the discussion, no agreement had been reached.
> >>
> >>The discussion just faded away with (IIRC) no strong arguments against the
> >>change.
> >
> >And, equally, the reaction to the proposed change should have been a
> >hint that not everyone agreed with it.
> 
> True.
> 
> The question that I'm wondering about is, what is our long term goal here:
> Do we want to offer people a shell that they can feel comfortable with
> from the start (ie. base), or do we want to keep a minimal one and tell
> people clearly that if they want more they should install the package?
> If we want a comfortable shell, should it be csh- or sh-flavoured?
> Should the (default) command line editing of a comfortable shell be vi- or 
> emacs-flavoured?

These are all good questions, Hubert.

As I've said to Pavel and a number of people, I'm actually of the
opinion that we should go with ksh, despite the fact that I've never
used it as a login shell, and will probably never use it either.  I
became used to something else at an early age, and am probably
considered apostate for that kind of thing.

I've also said to a number of people that I'd like to take a complete
review of all the software that we ship with base, with a view to
getting rid of some things that are out of date, and relatively
infrequently used, and MAYBE adding some new things from which we
could all benefit - and which can't easily be used in its pkgsrc
form.

But I'd like this to be in conjunction with the users, not just the
project management, or NetBSD developers. What I'm thinking about
is some kind of survey, based on anonymised "sa -a" output, which
would give us the basis for the commands that people use most often.

However we do it, and whatever we do, I'm not sure that "but we've
always done it that way" is reason enough in itself for us to avoid
progress.

Thanks once again for bringing this up, but can we move it away from
source-changes, please?

Thanks,
Alistair