Re: PKGBASE Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

yeah, considerably different approach in my case. before fbsd 4.6 i did linux. used shell that was there. bash iirc. then came fbsd. with csh. interactive was csh. with that search feature. scripts were sh. why this, unsure. i didn't change my interactive shell to sh nor bash. also i have this feeling that i installed that when i was quite young. i'm 42 at 9 aug. i'm unsure what one needs to learn in shell. and two shells are difficult? i don't know. i had to learn entire new world at fbsd and never had issues with two shells. maybe others did? and you aren't supposed to have root shell when using root? i'm unsure why command wrapper, that a sudo or doas is, is more secure option when used with either root password or user password? they all give one access to do everything. minus securelevel or chflags or other things, like restrictive sysctls. no idea why i do all those things differently. i guess noone really told me what to do. considering i still have even my very first install around, where i once had to restore some of /bin from backup and so on due popular cursed rm command where if you put space there and miss it you end up with / as individual argument on rm command line and then you go like removing /bin/ls? ffuuuuu^c^c^c. so yeah, csh was default. it worked, never had idea that i shouldn't be using csh. i even had to put tcsh onto my termux on android phone since i couldn't find way to teach bash, or at least their bash the tricks i needed from interactive shell. and bullying, ever had that problem? csh is a bad shell but noone tells why? vi is a editor of choice but noone tells why. and nano, pico, those are but noone tells why. ee, etc. and mc is bad file manager. and god forbid should i use mcedit to edit files. as it's like blasphemy or something. perl is a bad language, etc. many of those guys never tell why. nor do they explain why is it bad that i run them. i never understood the peer pressure to convert people to different program religions. basically thing is bad if they don't use it. rarely actual security considerations come into play. if you say so, noone uses csh, then maybe it's the reason why it's feafures haven't been added to sh. or maybe i miss them. anyway they aren't enabled either by shell or default config. but somebody had to make csh default back then and then add that cshrc i based mine on. and then noone used it anymore? it's a big suprise. well sadly i can't put any features into sh any time soon. funnily, after the default was switched, only then i really learned why. that i'm like single person who runs csh. i guess sh default isn't much of a pola violation either because it won't surprise you if you never knew other one. apparently majority won or so? thankfully one could always change it back. at least i slowly start to get why. i was completely unaware of all this. not a thing to talk about often or so? i wonder what else has been changed in fbsd where some people adapt quietly. sometimes they object. you know, like national politics style. people often  discuss politics at free time, saying they don't know how decisions get made and whey should affect them. often cursing at people "up there" having a disconnect with people. and they make decisions seemingly on their own, without warning, without explaining. kind of same here i guess. there's disconnect. maybe there's always a disconnect somewhere. how do i know eh. i have observed all those objections. some were taken back. some people went away, adapted or took them out locally. reasons were sometimes good, like no dev power. sometimes it was as if discussion was recorded in file in bottom of unused locked file cabinet in old office with do not enter sign. original was much funnier and it's on archives here somewhere. but idea was that noone looks there. and suddenly it pops out. this was all about pkgbase actually. why is a good idea but has issues. just like pkg replaced old system just recently. or long time ago, depends on how you feel time. i wonder how many people object on pkgbase when they find it coming default and they find it less than ideal. kind of same feedback you get from people who see backhoe driving next yard and suddently turns out they are going to build a highrise there with all plans already discussed and set years ago. how to avoid such things in volunteer run project like fbsd, which also have user base, i don't know. that's how all (f)bsd forks happened too, i guess. but how do i know? or i do? i also have like used it all for those, ~23 years?



On August 5, 2025 12:00:50 PM GMT+03:00, "Dag-Erling Smørgrav" <des@FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>Sulev-Madis Silber <freebsd-current-freebsd-org111@ketas.si.pri.ee>
>writes:
>> someone had creative idea to replace csh with sh without porting
>> "useless" features over.  partial history search is one
>> example.
>
>Who said partial history search is useless?
>
>> thankfully csh is still there. i get that some people use
>> bash everywhere as interactive shell which i don't.
>
>sh is not bash
>
>> funnily i can't even find way to configure it in bash?
>
>Configure what in bash?  afaik bash hash incremental history search
>turned on by default.
>
>> i've always used that feature since 4.6 and i would be surprised if
>> answer is nobody needs that.
>
>Some people like csh and that's fine, it's still available and we have
>no intention of removing it.
>
>> it was added and enabled for a reason.
>
>It was added 40+ years ago at a time when sh was the Bourne shell, which
>was much more limited.  That was before the Almquist shell (which our sh
>is descended from), before the Korn shell, before POSIX standardized a
>bunch of Almquist and Korn features, and before people lile jilles@ and
>pstef@ added a bunch of creature comforts to our sh.  There was a time
>in the 1980s and 1990s when some people preferred csh for scripting
>because it was genuinely superior in some respects, but improvements in
>sh and the lack of a formal or even informal standard for csh eventually
>put an end to that.
>
>> how come now we say it's not needed?
>
>We never said it's not needed, just that it doesn't have to be the
>default.
>
>> sh got several interactive use help features but who decided
>> and what?
>
>The people who did the work decided what to work on, that's the entire
>point of a volunteer project.
>
>> i expect many fbsd users and dev have used it way before 4.6. was it
>> like bash all the way or...? noone even used csh?
>
>Most people didn't.
>
>> the default? if so, why was the shell csh until now?
>
>See above.
>
>> why was it even changed?
>
>Because a majority of the people who decide these things (i.e. FreeBSD
>developers) prefer sh.
>
>> and why was it changed to sh?
>
>It's the POSIX shell, the one shell we are absolutely required to
>support, the one shell developers need to learn inside out because its
>language is used everywhere in scripts and Makefiles, so most people
>learn sh and never bother to learn a second shell; or if they do, it's
>one that behaves more like sh than like csh, such as bash or zsh.
>Therefore, it makes more sense for the default shell to be sh than csh.
>
>> granted, no other shells but. maybe we could upgrade sh so you can
>> also interactively actually use it.
>
>Many of us are fine using sh interactively.  But for most people it
>genuinely makes no difference, because they rarely if ever use a root
>shell.  They use sudo or doas.
>
>> but for now i just need to change it back
>
>That's done in seconds with chsh or vipw.  But also, you shouldn't log
>in as root, so the change shouldn't have much impact.
>
>> p.s.: i also never got and never get why there's tendency to bully
>> users off of using some software. csh is one of them
>
>Who is bullying you?
>
>DES