Re: Sysinst default root login shell

[Eric Haszlakiewicz <erh%nimenees.com@localhost>]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:13:41AM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2012-04-10 09:59, David Holland wrote:
> >In an ideal world sysinst would allow choosing tcsh and then schedule
> >the static-tcsh package for build or install, and/or any other pkgsrc
> >shell that is or will be on the root volume, but I don't think that's
> >likely to be workable anytime in the near future.
> >
> >plus in the long run the csh family should be allowed to gradually
> >die; there's little to recommend it from a language standpoint...
> 
> But tcsh is a much nicer (imho) shell for interactive use than sh, and I 
> think we are talking about the login shell, and not the shell language...
> I'd say even csh is nicer than sh as an interactive shell.

I used tcsh for years and I thought for quite a while that it was nicer
than sh, but eventually the fact that I could copy and paste bits of shell
script from scripts and from examples that abound on the 'net (which often
are written for bash) caused me to switch over.
Not having to mentally "switch gears" to do something at the command prompt
vs. in a file certainly helps too.

Of course, it's probably not a good thing if you're spending a lot of time 
logged in as root, so the convenience of using a shell that you're familiar
with really applies to your individual account.
For the root account, which should be rarely used, it seems to me like 
consistency with existing scripts, and use of a posix-approaching shell
should win out.

eric