From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 30 13:02:16 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B5B6116A477 for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bma@gilmour.subvert.org.uk) Received: from jagger.subvert.org.uk (jagger.subvert.org.uk [80.68.88.238]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 752EA13C4BB for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bma@gilmour.subvert.org.uk) Received: from localhost (jagger.subvert.org.uk [127.0.0.1]) by jagger.subvert.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 679A4382D2 for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:14 +0000 (GMT) Received: from jagger.subvert.org.uk ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (jagger.subvert.org.uk [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id JIrSBipO+mR2 for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:06 +0000 (GMT) Received: from gilmour.subvert.org.uk (user-514d9173.l3.c2.dsl.pol.co.uk [81.77.145.115]) (Authenticated sender: bma) by jagger.subvert.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40776382D4 for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:06 +0000 (GMT) Received: by gilmour.subvert.org.uk (Postfix, from userid 1000) id F22FDB833; Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:06 +0000 (UTC) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:06 +0000 From: "Benjamin M. A'Lee" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20071030130206.GB1178@gilmour.subvert.org.uk> References: <472647A0.3030009@brookes.ac.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <472647A0.3030009@brookes.ac.uk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.16 (2007-06-09) Subject: Re: Dangers of using a non-base shell X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:02:16 -0000 On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 08:50:40PM +0000, Stephen Allen wrote: > It's been drawn to my attention not to use bash from the ports collection, > because if one of it's dependencies (gettext or libiconv) fails or is > updated significantly, it could break, and prevent login. The suggested > solution was to use a base shell (such as sh) and append 'bash -l' to .shrc > to automatically enter bash. > > The quite annoying side-effect is having to type 'exit' twice to get out of > a su shell or screen. > > Would it be a better idea to use the pre-compiled binary for bash? And if > I did so, could I be alerted to updates as easy as using 'pkg_version -v' > when checking if any ports need updating? With some of the shells there's the option to compile them statically, which would avoid the problem. You could possibly also put "bash -l && exit" in your .shrc, which would exit if bash exited successfully. I haven't tested it, but it should work. A precompiled binary wouldn't help, AFAIK, because you still wouldn't be able to use it if there was a problem with one of the libraries.