[ On Tuesday, March 16, 1999 at 23:17:57 (-0400), David Maxwell wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: CVS commit: src
>
> 1. Principle of least surprise
> BSD for some time, and NetBSD (forever) have shipped with a root shell of
> csh. If we're going to change defaults we should have a good reason.

This is about the only real argument for *not* changing root's default
shell to /bin/sh.  But this is just for hysterical reasons....

> 2. Utilitarianism
> I don't know anyone who uses /bin/sh as their primary shell. I _do_ know
> some people who use /bin/csh as their primary shell. Those who prefer the
> sh stylings, (or who dispise the csh's linguistic limitations) are likely
> to install bash, ksh, etc... (etc is NOT a shell! ;-)
> For the basic user, csh provides more interactive nicities than sh. IMO.

I use /bin/sh on almost all machines where there's no ksh (which was all
NetBSD's that I didn't own up until NetBSD came standard with /bin/ksh).

The modern *BSD /bin/sh with proper history, command-line editing, and
aliases, etc. is almost indistinguishable from ksh for every-day
interactive use.

I haven't used csh as my login shell for about ten years now.  Proper
history and command-line editing in proper shells has totally eliminated
the only real advantage csh ever had for interactive use.

> 3. The single user /bin/sh argument
> /bin/sh is the default shell in single user mode (or, the suggested
> shell at least)

I my mind that's the best argument *for* changing root's default shell
to /bin/sh.  I think immediate consistency should always override
hysterical consistency (eg. this point should override the first point).

>   likely because singleuser mode is meant for performing
> low-level system maintainence. The system is running in a limited
> fashion, and /bin/sh makes very few assumptions about what may be available.

No, I don't think that's got anything to do with it....

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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