Re: [HEADSUP] making /bin/sh the default shell for root

From: Chris Stephan <chris.stephan_at_live.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2021 10:29:32 UTC
I completely agree. It will save me the ‘/bin/sh’ at the beginning of each ‘su -‘ session. Also, it will simplify building extra small FreeBSD images, allowing an easier removal of ‘csh’.

I use csh from time to time, but I do wish it would take a much more explicit action so my brain has switched over to ‘csh mode’. I won’t lie that I’ve pasted script into my terminal and spent time troubleshooting why the commands didn’t work only to realize I forgot to change to /bin/sh first.

Chris Stephan

Sent from FreeBSD
________________________________
From: owner-freebsd-current@freebsd.org <owner-freebsd-current@freebsd.org> on behalf of Baptiste Daroussin <bapt@FreeBSD.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2021 3:36:45 AM
To: current@freebsd.org <current@freebsd.org>; arch@FreeBSD.org <arch@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: [HEADSUP] making /bin/sh the default shell for root

Hello,

TL;DR: this is not a proposal to deorbit csh from base!!!

For years now, csh is the default root shell for FreeBSD, csh can be confusing
as a default shell for many as all other unix like settled on a bourne shell
compatible interactive shell: zsh, bash, or variant of ksh.

Recently our sh(1) has receive update to make it more user friendly in
interactive mode:
* command completion (thanks pstef@)
* improvement in the emacs mode, to make it behave by default like other shells
* improvement in the vi mode (in particular the vi edit to respect $EDITOR)
* support for history as described by POSIX.

This makes it a usable shell by default, which is why I would like to propose to
make it the default shell for root starting FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE (not MFCed)

If no strong arguments has been raised until October 15th, I will make this
proposal happen.

Again just in case: THIS IS NOT A PROPOSAL TO REMOVE CSH FROM BASE!

Best regards,
Baptiste