On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:01:45 +0200 Thomas Hood <jdth...@gmail.com> wrote:
> * The package then has fewer dependencies
> * ... and can then be installed on a system without bash.
Unless the package is doing a lot of clever stuff in shell (at which
point it is possibly worth asking if the package should use a faster
interpreted language like perl - which will be installed even if bash
is not - or converted to a compiled tool), the reasons to
keep #!/bin/bash are likely to be inertia.
> * When /bin/sh is dash, the script will run faster
> * ... and will run on a shell which is smaller and thus less buggy
Not necessarily true.
> * ... and more secure
Not necessarily true.
> * Indeed, dash is the future whereas bash is history.
Opinion.
> Should we be aiming to eliminate all bash scripts from Debian?
I see no good reasons.
> Are there real-world Debian systems that are "minimal" enough
> to have trouble running bash, but not so minimal that busybox
> has to be used?
Such systems would probably involve some form of embedded usage and
most people investigating such things could be expected to at least ask
on the debian-embedded lists or #emdebian on IRC. I don't miss many
queries on either of those and I cannot remember a single instance of
anyone wanting to remove bash but keep dash.
If bash is a problem then perl is a bigger problem and dash is not the
solution. The solution is busybox which means removing coreutils and a
whole world of fettling. i.e. Emdebian Crush.
> One thing I would like to point out immediately is that a bash
> script will not necessarily run faster if it has to be rewritten
> to run on sh. This is especially true if ${//}s are replaced by
> pipes to sed.
All the more reason to make the rewrite in a different language. If the
tool isn't likely to be needed on minimal systems where the only
available shell is busybox, then a rewrite in perl, python or something
else would seem appropriate. If it could be used with busybox, the only
really sane option is to compile it.
--
Neil Williams
=============
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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