From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 14 17:08:50 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B40511065675 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:08:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dan@more.net) Received: from vortex.more.net (vortex.more.net [198.209.253.169]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 909D48FC13 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:08:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from jane.spg.more.net (jane.spg.more.net [207.160.133.140]) by vortex.more.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE2E228406; Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:08:49 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by jane.spg.more.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C1722C64C; Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:08:49 -0500 (CDT) From: Dan D Niles To: Malcolm Kay In-Reply-To: <201006111146.42080.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> References: <1276190395.5437.53.camel@jane.spg.more.net> <201006111146.42080.malcolm.kay@internode.on.net> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:08:48 -0500 Message-Id: <1276535328.14498.37.camel@jane.spg.more.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.26.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Switched to Bash and Comparison of Shells X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:08:50 -0000 On Fri, 2010-06-11 at 11:46 +0930, Malcolm Kay wrote: > On Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:49 am, Dan D Niles wrote: > > I had been using csh/tcsh for 20 years and I just switched to > > bash. The recent discussion about the differences between the > > shells prompted me to take another look at bash. I thought > > I'd share my perception of the differences between tcsh and > > bash. > > It seems to me that it is a little late in the day to be changing > to bash. Some well known Linux distributions are beginning to see > that some non-posix features of bash can create difficulties. I > believe recent releases of Ubuntu use dash as the prefered > shell, and it looks as though Debian will be going the same way. > Dash is supposed to be a modern, faster and cleaner > implementation of sh -- if installed through FBSD ports it has > the same man page as sh. For an interactive shell, it doesn't really matter if it has non-POSIX features or not. For scripts it is a different story. If you use non-POSIX features in a script, it becomes less portable. I switched my interactive shell not my scripting shell. The problem with Linux distros is they replaced /bin/sh with bash. I imagine that non-POSIX features started to creep into their shell scripts and they became less portable. I agree with Linux distros using a POSIX shell for /bin/sh instead of bash. Ubuntu has been using dash as of at least 9.04, BTW.