Based on feedback in this thread, the official LQ polls continue. What is your preferred Linux login shell?

--jeremy

eshell (emacs shell)

So I have been forced by the need to work with Yocto / OpenEmbedded to learn enough bash to really grok what it is.....

a) It is actually a very small language.
b) As a Programming Language, it is truly awful. Please folks, just stop writing *sh scripts. Now.
c) There is a bunch of command line typing convenience stuff layered and interwingled on top of it. I suspect that stuff could be made more orthogonal and layered properly on top of a decent language.

Hi,

thanks for specifying "login shell" instead of just "shell", which is way too vague.

Evo2.

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bash
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Hi,

maybe a follow up question would be interesting - what login shells have you used? Presumably bash is the preferred login shell of the majority of LQ members because it is the default on the majority of distros of LQ members.

Evo2.

evo2 nailed me.

I use bash because it is the standard. I've never been moved to try anything else.

Yea, bash, because its there...

**UPDATED**

That seemed a little dismissive. In fairness:
* Originally because it was there
* Now because it is familiar
* It has become familiar because it really is an excellent login shell!

tcsh FTW !

1 members found this post helpful.

Valid point. I've been doing Unix since 1984. I've used sh, ksh, zsh, csh, tcsh, and bash. Prior to bash, my favorite was ksh. I suppose I like bash because it's pretty much like ksh with a few extra features.

Yes, it is a language! Being thoroughly fluent in Bash script, I find it extremely convenient in spite of its idiosyncrasies. It's convenient because it's always right there at my fingertips.

In fact, I'm frequently frustrated that this reply box doesn't understand CTRL-A, CTRL-E, CTRL-D and ALT-D like Bash.

Hi,
I was dumped in tsch on DEC and Solaris machines in the mid to late 90s. When I started using Linux in the early 00s I persisted with tcsh since that's what I was used to. I was however told from the beginning that I should not use csh/tsch for scripts, so I was used to looping and branching in sh but not in csh. I'd find myself sometimes typing "bash" at my tcsh prompt to do some things, which after a while lead me to actually trying bash as my login shell. It took me a while to get it set up how I liked it, but once there I was very happy. Around this time I noticed that some of the wizards were using zsh, a few years later I gave it a try and again, after getting it set up to my liking I've been very happy with - the transition from bash to zsh is trivial compared to tcsh to bash.

Evo2.

Hi,
I guess you don't spend much time on the command line. What scripts in particular do you want people not to write?

Evo2

1 members found this post helpful.

Not wanting to engage in another pointless discussion, I ignored this when I first saw it... but since others have also taken note, my own two cents...

No, it is actually a "shell", a command line interpreter which reads user input and executes commands. It also supports a variant of a powerful scripting language useful within that context.

It is not a general purpose programming language, it is a special purpose language which supports direct user interaction with the kernel as well as deferred (scripted) execution, all with the same syntax. As such it is very specialized, but very useful for its intended purpose.

Your understanding of what it is, what it does and why it is as it is, are exactly backward! It is an interactive command interpreter first, with an extended scripting syntax as one component.

As you indicate that you have been forced to work with it, and are obviously not knowledgable within the *nix paradigm, you view it negatively. It would be more useful to try to understand the how and why of it rather than criticize that which you do not understand.

6 members found this post helpful.

Hmm. Hmhm. I usually do a graphical login with kdm. What do I vote then? Jeremy?

When I go to a console I use bash since it is the default. When I have time (during retirement perhaps ) I should like to learn scripting and also try zsh.