*BSD News Article 8077


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From: berry@max.IN-Berlin.DE (Stefan Behrens)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: [BSD386] bash for /bin/sh is the best you can do!
Date: 23 Nov 1992 00:36:31 +0100
Organization: Private
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <1ep5idINNue@max.IN-Berlin.DE>
References: <Bxx6zB.JDw@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Nov19.035447.29105@moxie.hou.tx.us> <RICH.92Nov21115938@omicron.Rice.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: max.in-berlin.de
Summary: Use bash for /bin/sh
Keywords: 386bsd bash /bin/sh

In article <RICH.92Nov21115938@omicron.Rice.edu> Rich@rice.edu writes:
[...about elm2.4...]
>   It won't compile right with the existing version of /bin/sh. You
>   need to copy 386BSD's bash onto /bin/sh.
>
>This may cause you problems when booting.  It's also going to expose
>all the sh dependent code in system shell scripts.  Rich

No, I think you're wrong, ash makes much more problems than bash!
There have been so many warnings about using bash for /bin/sh. But for me
it works great. I copied bash to /bin/sh two or three month ago, no
problems yet, neither with booting nor with other system-dependig stuff!
Using bash for /bin/sh means less problems with porting software, less
problems with compatibility in general.
At that time when I used ash, the first thing I had to do to `port'
software was substituting all references to ` sh ' or `/bin/sh' to
`/usr/local/bin/bash' and it worked, so I use bash as default now.
I compiled most of the GNU stuff and the other available sources that
were interesting for me with less than ten lines to patch (usually
wrong prototypes for library functions). With ash many programs didn't
compile or didn't run!
-- 
Stefan (berry@max.IN-Berlin.DE)