On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Eric Schnoebelen wrote:

> Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 09:28:11 -0600
> From: Eric Schnoebelen <eric@cirr.com>
> To: netbsd-users@netbsd.org
> Subject: Re: bash problem 
> 
> 
> George Sollish writes:
> - On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Chris Pinnock wrote:
> - > I would personally not use bash for a root shell. This is because it
> - > usually sits in the /usr partition. I want root to be able to run a shell
> - > even if the /usr partition gets corrupted - so I stick with /bin/csh. 
> - > (Actually, the first thing I do as root is usually type exec 
> - > /usr/pkg/bin/bash, but that's another story...)
> - 
> - Good point about the package system installing bash in /usr, but couldn't
> - we bash-users have the best of all possible worlds by moving bash to /bin
> - and, if we're paranoid about space on /, moving one or more of the
> - (unused) default shells back to /usr/pkg?
> 	
> 	The other half of the problem is that bash is dynamically
> linked, and you don't have the shared libraries when /usr isn't
> mounted.
> 
> 	You _really_want_ the root shell to be statically linked.
> I fully expect to get a fairly limited shell when booting single
> user..  Furthermore, the rc script expect sh to do their
> processing.
> 
> 	Good Grief!  I just checked the sizes of the statically
> linked shells, and /bin/sh is _not_ the smallest!  Time to go
> read the sh manpage and see what `features' have been added to
> the NetBSD edition of sh.. (quite a surprise to someone who grew
> up expecting /bin/sh to be pretty much the v7 version..)
> 
> --
> Eric Schnoebelen		eric@cirr.com		http://www.cirr.com
>         Friendships are fragile things, and require as much handling as
> 	any other fragile and precious thing.  -Randolph S. Bourne

Thanks for the background info.  Time to set my root shells back to
/bin/sh ...

George E Sollish	Chief Engineer  	 Auto Gear Equipment
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