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Re: Login shell (was: Small Bug)



On Thu, Mar 16, 2000 at 10:25:19AM -0800, R Joseph Wright wrote:
> I kind of like the idea of a login shell the more I follow this
> discussion.  It's revolutionary.  If the machine can be made secure with
> it, why not?  It makes for a more versatile system.

It's not revolutionary. In the 1970s, most OSs other than Unix had at least
a rudimentary command processor (supporting commands equivalent to login,
who, uptime etc.) rather than a login prompt, so that you could see how busy
the system was or configure your terminal before logging in. I don't know
how GNU inherited it, but I suspect that whoever implemented it had used a
similar arrangement on an older system and just liked it.

-- 

Adam Sampson
azz@gnu.org


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