Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:17:19 GMT From: Cliff Sarginson <cliff@raggedclown.net> To: Doug Barton <DougB@FreeBSD.ORG>, Cliff Sarginson <cliff@raggedclown.net>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Root and the C Shell Message-ID: <E145kch-000Oip-00@post.mail.nl.demon.net>
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> Cliff Sarginson wrote: > > > > Hello, > > A simple question, I loathe and detest the C shell. > > Will anything break if I change root's login shell to > > be something (anything!) other than csh ? > > The canonical answer to this question is that changing it to /bin/sh is > ok, but changing it to something else not built with the system is a bad > idea. Although, there are a lot of people who will tell you that they do > it, so it's ok. Personally, I have changed all my users (root, and > unprivileged) to use /bin/sh as their shell, and in my .profile's I have > this as the first line: > > [ -x /usr/local/bin/bash ] && > exec /usr/local/bin/bash --rcfile $HOME/.bash_profile > > It has saved my ass, or at least saved me lots of time fixing stuff on > more than one occasion. I have talked to some truly paranoid people who > do something like: > > if /usr/local/bin/bash -version >/dev/null; then > exec /usr/local/bin/bash --rcfile $HOME/.bash_profile > fi > > I actually had one situation a long time ago where bash was there, but > it wasn't runnable due to a library problem, so the above would have > helped. However, making changes like that takes me a long time to > propogate across machines, so I haven't bothered yet... maybe it's time > for a .script spring, errr.. fall, ...errr... winter cleaning. :) Ok, thanks for the reply. Obviously any root shell has got to be a statically linked binary otherwise you can get into problems in emergency situations. My question was really to find out if anything in the system relied on the root shell being csh - to save me having to find out the hard way ! Personally the default of "csh" as the root shell is arcane and one of the hangover's from BSD that FreeBSD could do well to dump. There ought to be some sort of law against the C shell.. lol (ducks the flamethrowers!), what people do in their private lives is their concern but public displays of the C shell I find quite outrageous .. (hey guys that was a joke!) Cliff To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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