Re: Sysinst default root login shell

[Aleksej Saushev <asau%inbox.ru@localhost>]

Johnny Billquist <bqt%softjar.se@localhost> writes:

> On 2012-04-10 22:21, Aleksej Saushev wrote:
>> Johnny Billquist<bqt%softjar.se@localhost>  writes:
>>
>>> On 2012-04-10 02:34, Eric Haszlakiewicz wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Apr 09, 2012 at 10:05:22PM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>>> On 2012-04-09 20:04, Eric Haszlakiewicz wrote:
>>>>>> And almost all of the scripts in the system are implemented with /bin/sh,
>>>>>> so having the default shell be something that can actually run (pieces 
>>>>>> of)
>>>>>> those would be nice.
>>>>>
>>>>> What does the selected shell of an account have to do with in which
>>>>> language a bunch of scripts are written in?
>>>>
>>>> It's useful if you need examples of how to do things.
>>>
>>> I might be dense, but I still fail to see the connection between
>>> what language a bunch of scripts are written in and the login
>>> shell.
>>>
>>> One is programs, the other is interactive use by a human. If
>>> there is a connection here, it certainly flew me by.
>>
>> The connection is straightforward: we shouldn't force users to learn
>> broken language used only in archaic systems and only in interactive mode.
>>
>> sh isn't ideal but it is much better in most if not all respects.
>> It doesn't incorporate archaic non-orthogonal editing facilities that
>> always get in the way; it allows writing the same commands at prompt
>> and in scripts, copying them at wish between prompt and scripts without
>> major rework; it provides more general and more flexible I/O redirection.
>> There is absolutely no benefit in remembering different syntax, various
>> limitations and subtle deviations in behaviour of some tools (e.g. nohup),
>> learning never to forget to escape exclamation marks and so on.
>>
>> It may have never occured to you if you have grown with csh in time
>> when it did have features absent elsewhere. These days the situation
>> is reverse. csh is neither more capable nor more useful. It is not
>> merely different either. It is alien. User reaction to csh is
>> definite, they try to change it, and if the latter is not possible
>> the first command they type after login is this:
>>
>> bash
>
> So I guess you are constantly logged in to root, and do all your
> work there. Furthermore, you indiscriminately copy-paste complex
> shell scripts to your prompt, instead of having them in a file.

I don't see how it is relevant here, csh is set as default user shell in
FreeBSD and on some other systems there exist sysadmins that insist on
the same. In particular, my last observation is made on linux.

If that really matters, yes, I do many tasks that require superuser
privileges. Due to the wrong choice made not by me I have to deal with a
number of systems that have fixed csh for root and even for regular users,
even if it would cause relatively minor "switching gears" problems to me,
I don't consider imposing csh on new users a good thing.


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