Brandorr wrote: > ===Q: Why doesn't /bin/sh point to bash?=== > A: Solaris uses the Bourne shell (/bin/sh) as the default system shell > to satisfy backward compatibility with historic releases of Solaris. > There is work being planned to replace the Bourne shell with a generic > POSIX compliant shell. Whether that is an updated bash running in > POSIX compatibility mode, or another shell such as ksh93 is still an > open question. Either option require additional coding resources to > implement.
The default system shell, as specified in /etc/passwd, is used _only_ for command line access. As such it really should be something more modern than Bourne's sh. The default script shell, OTOH, is and always has been /bin/sh. Hard to see any case for changing that (from a posix-compliant version, not that I'm a fan of posix. Few organizations have been as unfriendly to backwards-compatibility as posix). > ===Q: Why isn't bash the default system shell?=== > A: There is a consensus building to use a modern/user-friendly default > system shell, such as bash or ksh93, but the integration and > compatibility changes required have yet to be done. A consensus for ksh? Among what audience? Couldn't be the vast majority of potential OpenSolaris users, currently about running bash (90%) and tcsh (9%), in Linux and *BSD respectively. The only real problem with ksh is that scripts written to it won't run on most other platforms. Is there any *bsd or Linux that includes a ksh by default? Reason for this is that the _most_ important feature of a programming shell is compatibility. People who want advanced features use scripting languages like perl, python, and ruby, not shells. IMO, Sun's current market share (in the low single digits) is due to a persistent disregard for cross-platform compatibility. Religious arguments aside, making ksh the default anything will only have a negative impact on compatibility, and market share. As always, IMO. -- Roger Marquis Roble Systems Consulting http://www.roble.com/ _______________________________________________ indiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss
