Is it time to switch the default shell from bash to fish?

Rather “if it makes things broke” …

3 Likes

Exactly. And, it will “break” things for people not accustomed to zsh … including me :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Or suggestions or scripts or one-line code you find on the forum, etc
“In the name of convenience” … yet I find no value myself.
Quite the opposite.

1 Like

I just checked the KDE install I am working on for a friend. Turns out that Manjaro KDE installs a lot of zsh bits.

gary

But people want that “Ooohh, shiny!” prompt of zsh ─ never even mind that it doesn’t work in a tty. :stuck_out_tongue:

:face_with_hand_over_mouth:

Oh right … have we decided yet whether we want to specifically cater to /r/UnixPorn ?

2 Likes

But it does work in TTY, has worked for years now. It’s not a new shiny thing, we have had manjaro-zsh-config for a long while now, and it has been used in some editions as default from the start.

The new thing is gnome edition adopting it as default.

This has really helped me understand the issue better, so thanks everyone.

Yeah … but it wasnt a great idea in those others either (IMHO)… but the justification was that they were ‘special’, ‘indy’, ‘community’.

The default not being BASH is a pretty intense decision (IMHO).
And I havent seen any sort of dialog around it. Rather … it seemed to be accepted simply for being ‘new and shiny’, without further consideration.

2 Likes

Is it time to switch the default shell from bash to fish?

  • for user yes, for me it’s the most attractive for a user who doesn’t enter advanced commands in his terminal
  • in iso … no :no_entry_sign:
1 Like
  • Yes! :+1:
  • No ! :-1:

0 voters

1 Like

I just tried zsh on konsole. it changed the prompt. so i guess i am going to lookup the documentation.

See … the issue isnt how easy it is to adopt or use … its that scripts, or some command you see on the forums, is incompatible. You can make the bash prompt look the same too.
But whether from a purist perspective, or ‘newbies’ … it doesnt make sense to have a default that breaks things - in what, the name of new users who wouldnt care about ‘extra’ zsh functions?

1 Like

I am not a newbie. I do not use bash or fish or zsh. I started with computing before the command line and yes before Unix. The PDP 8 had a screen and a command line. For hobbyists, it is fun to play with. But I work, my setup includes one computer with a 3270 board in it so I can connect to mainframes in the Bay Area of California. I download a bit of a huge file, work up and test my SQL work and then upload the SQL file to a mainframe and then run the job. And I then get paid for doing it.

Uhm … good for you I guess?
I think its cool you have been computing long enough to … predate command lines. Thats pretty impressive.
In any case … as you mention, there are tons of users and needs and different scenarios.
Since you say you are familiar all the way back before C and Berkeley … are you saying you do or do not support such a change in the default shell?

1 Like

If a scrip breaks because users default interactive shell is changed, then it is a poorly written script. Personally I haven’t come across any of these over the years. I think this is pretty extreme corner case and not a good basis to make decisions on.

Bash also breaks scripts with wrong shebang, same as zsh.

1 Like

OK. So here we find the crux.
You actually believe (ugh … that sounds wrong … I am not asserting you are definitively incorrect) …
That zsh makes no noticeable or worrisome changes, and further that any such occurences are the fault of the software being used ?

Could you please throw some examples - and not - one - not two but a lot of examples that zsh is breaking bash scripting?

The only thing I have ever seen is very special cases using a % sign and then in very special cases.

I don’t like the shiny - what I like is the history which comes up with the complete command from your history e.g. like this

20200930-063949_660x112_screenshot

This intense history and fzf integration like this

20200930-064416_664x242_screenshot

I use it for the git integration

20200930-064543_666x118_screenshot

All of the above makes the terminal so much more pleasant to work with.

2 Likes

I can think of a number of threads in the old forum and one or two in this one.
Even doing ‘code-golf’ with jonathon at one point it came up.
(sorry … if you cant find them yourself … I might take the time to edit/compile later, but not today)

Pretty much. I know that there are cases where it can happen, but they are exceedingly rare and not something that a new user should run into. In my opinion zsh makes the terminal much more approachable to new users.

And if someone writes a script in bash, they should use bash shebang. To do otherwise is a bug.

3 Likes