Re: bootstrap shell?

[Adam Hoka <adam.hoka%gmail.com@localhost>]

Tobias Nygren wrote:

> On Fri, 23 May 2008 20:56:38 +0200
> Adam Hoka <adam.hoka%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 23 May 2008 15:03:44 +0200
> > Tobias Nygren <tnn%NetBSD.org@localhost> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Fri, 23 May 2008 14:58:45 +0200
> > > Tobias Nygren <tnn%NetBSD.org@localhost> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Hello,
> > > > 
> > > > pkgsrc/OSF1 has long been plagued by the buggy and crash prone /bin/sh
> > > > _and_ /bin/ksh. I would like to fix this once and for all by adding
> > > > support for providing a sane shell as part of the bootstrap process.
> > > > This would involve importing the source code of some shell to pkgsrc,
> > > > like was already done for awk and sed. The #1 candidate seems to be
> > > > shells/pdksh. This would add 1.8M to unpacked pkgsrc. Can we live with
> > > > this?
> > > > 
> > > > TIA,
> > > > -Tobias
> > > 
> > > I should have mentioned that mksh is another alternative, though I
> > > haven't investigated it yet.
> > 
> > mksh would be a better choice, because its a bugfixed version of pdksh and 
> > compiles on a lot of unix platforms, even on older BSD/OS and other exotic 
> > systems (and without autoconf).
> > The author is also very responsive, which is a great plus.
> > 
> > (ps.: personally I would be happy with mksh instead of ancient pdksh in 
> > base)
> > 
> > -- 
> > Adam
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I did give mksh a spin. It didn't fly with pkgsrc because it's
> handling of the "echo" shell builtin is broken. At least it deviates
> from BSD and SUSv3 sh(1). Try echo '\x40' under mksh.
> We could probably hack it but I opted for pdksh for now because it's
> more familiar and definitely time proven even though there are some
> well known bugs lurking within it.
> 
> Kind regards,
> -Tobias

You can try contacting Thorsten Glaser about mksh.

--
Adam