Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 16:36:18 -0600 (MDT) From: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> To: cswiger@mac.com Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: boot banner project Message-ID: <20050504.163618.112621888.imp@bsdimp.com> In-Reply-To: <ff3ef3b2621f16316effcf296f044d93@mac.com> References: <5207b55e44478fa93e3689ad79b54f4d@mac.com> <20050504.152439.71089989.imp@bsdimp.com> <ff3ef3b2621f16316effcf296f044d93@mac.com>
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> On May 4, 2005, at 5:24 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > >> Agreed. I consider it a serious misfortune that FreeBSD doesn't use > >> /bin/sh as root's shell. On the other hand, it's easy enough to fix, > >> so I haven't spent my time complaining about this. :-) > > > > All BSDs have, since a very long time ago, used /bin/csh as root's > > shell. > > NEXTSTEP never did; and neither does OS X: Nexstep is mach based, not BSD based. OS X is FreeBSD based, so clearly they changed it :-) > Likewise for the majority of UNIX systems I am familiar with (Solaris, > Ultrix, HP/UX). In the case of Linux, or a few other systems, they > would use a POSIX shell like bash or ksh instead, which are almost > entirely backwards-compatible with /bin/sh. Ultrix/mips and Ultrix/VAX did have /bin/csh as their root shell, at least in early versions that I used in the late 1980's. Solaris is SYSV based with some BSD bits added to that base, so isn't of BSD orgin. HP/UX likewise. I'm not looking for a catalog of systems. I'm telling you why we are where we are today, and why things haven't changed: There's really no need and inertial keeps things BSDish. Most people never use the root shell directly, and all shell scripts are /bin/sh anyway... It truely is one of those things that just doesn't matter at all. Warner
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