Re: POSIX shell; bash ash pdksh & /bin/sh
Hi,
>>"Santiago" == Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
Santiago> On 2 Aug 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> [...] the fact that bash is essential, [...]
Santiago> The day we have another shell which provides the /bin/sh
Santiago> symlink,
Yup, the day we have a shelll tested out, which does not break
too may packages.
Santiago> we would have to analyze again the reasons why bash has to
Santiago> be essential. I guess we would end up in a circular
Santiago> argument like this:
Santiago> 1. bash is essential because lots of packages use it, so
Santiago> making it non-essential would be stupid.
Santiago> 2. Lots of packages use bash because, after all, bash is
Santiago> essential, so what's the problem?
Nice summary.
Santiago> The obvious way to break this circle is to make bash
Santiago> non-essential. If none of the awk's we provide is
Santiago> essential, why has bash to be essential?
No, we have to do is ask a few questions first:
a) Is it required we break out of this circle? (I suspect there is a
group that shall aver, quite vocally, that this is indeed the
case). What are the benefits of not using bash (some of these have
aready been pointed out to the list)
b) Is there an tested alternative? We don't know yet. I think we
should test this. try out a different shell. If we all try out a
few cnadidates, we should soon have an idea about which ones are
viable (pdksh, ash, etc ...)
c) How many packages need to be changed?
d) can we create an upgrade path by which people can safely ugrade to
a non-bash /bin/sh? Are there any known glitches? (guessing is not
good enough)
e) does the benefot of all this work really justify the work?
f) How many non-Debian packages are affected? Does this affect user
scripts, and if so, to what extent?
manoj
--
Weeds are the blight of fields. Anger is the blight of
mankind. Consequently offerings to those free from anger are of great
fruit. 357
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: