Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by kchoudhu on Saturday November 22, 2014 @07:32PM
(#8647268)
Just don't change root's shell to something like bash. BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.
Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by wtracy on Sunday November 23, 2014 @12:34AM
(#8647916)
Care to elaborate? Does FreeBSD make assumptions about the root user's shell that Linux doesn't?
Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by chrismsnz on Sunday November 23, 2014 @04:51AM
(#8648298)
Yes, root's shell should be one provided by the distribution's base install.
I think the biggest worry is that if you need to do something like boot into single user mode for an emergency recovery, and /usr or /usr/local (with root's shell in it) is on a different or unmountable partition then you will not be able to do anything.
Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by knob on Sunday November 23, 2014 @06:47AM
(#8648510)
Additionally, if you upgrade your shell, or something gets borked, then... you now don't have a shell.
Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by allanjude on Wednesday November 26, 2014 @01:47PM
(#8663944)
This is one of the reasons for the existence of the 'toor' user, which still uses the default shell
Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by kchoudhu on Sunday November 23, 2014 @09:13PM
(#8650721)
Say there's a failure that forces you to bail into an emergency session where you can't mount /usr/local (which is where bash is typically installed on FreeBSD). All of a sudden, you don't have a shell.
This is a really bad place to be.
It's funny how little things like this affect where you go with systems. On the uni systems, emacs was set up to reformat your code by default (as you typed it in). This drove me bananas, and I didn't realise it was configurable. So I went off and found another editor, and I'm still using it.