*BSD News Article 63898


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!imci3!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!iol!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Subject: Re: Is replacing /bin/sh with bash recommended?
Organization: None, Mt. Laurel, NJ
Message-ID: <DoJrqo.6F9@twwells.com>
References: <4ih5qb$lae@blackice.winternet.com> <4ik5p6$qm6@helena.mt.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 03:44:48 GMT
Lines: 29

In article <4ik5p6$qm6@helena.mt.net>,
Nate Williams <nate@sneezy.sri.com> wrote:
: In article <4ih5qb$lae@blackice.winternet.com>,
: John D. Boggs <jdb@robigo.winternet.com> wrote:
: >What sort of nasties (if any) should I expect if I replace /bin/sh
: >with bash in FreeBSD-2.1.0?
:
: Big ones.

This is a load of shit. Since I converted to NetBSD/FreeBSD on the
various machines I've used over the last two odd years, I have
*always* replaced /bin/sh with a statically linked bash. Except
right at the beginning, when NetBSD's /usr/src Makefiles were
fucked up, I have had _no_ problems. None at all.

I run both my home machine (NetBSD) and an ISP (FreeBSD) in this
configuration. With *NO* problems. Absolutely none.

It's also worth noting *why* I switched to bash: because the !@#$
shell that comes with the system had problems, "big ones", in
dealing with many shell scripts....

There is only one reason to not use bash instead of the standard
shell and that's that bash is about 40% bigger. Still, there's no
way I'd use the existing shell; in a word, it sucks, it always has
sucked, and probably will never get any better -- because the
*reason* for using it instead of bash is that it's smaller. Add
the stuff to make it as useful as bash and it'll be as big as
bash... at which point, you might just as well use bash.