An interesting thread has been started on the Fedora mailing list proposing that Bash be replaced with Dash as the core (/bin/sh) shell. It should be noted though that this is still a thread discussion as far as I know, not a policy decision announcement, and nothing concrete has been reached.
Personally and even though this proposal seems at least partially based on the recent Shellshock hysteria I'm happy to see that people are finally starting to consider things like technical superiority and simplicity over politics, and treating bloat and feature creep as far from harmless. I also hope that other distribution maintainers have the same kind of discussion. I'd like to see Arch for example start using dash in the core install since even with shell script heavy systems - like those that use sysvinit - very rarely are non-POSIX features used and, when they are, they probably shouldn't be.
For those unaware dash is a tiny and robust shell that aims for strict POSIX conformance with as small a runtime and disk footprint as possible. It was originally a fork of ash which is a pretty good shell for embedded or otherwise thin systems and is what is built into busybox for a shell. Here is its official page.
(Score: 4, Informative) by jasassin on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:18PM
It seems dash as a replacement shell for the init process may speed thing up more than upstart or systemd.
http://lwn.net/Articles/343924/ [lwn.net]
They use dash just as a shell for init. Default user login shell is still bash! This is a "good thing".
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:45PM
Instead of using bash or dash, why not just get rid of the shell altogether and have systemd be the shell? Systemd already tries to do everything else. It might as well be the shell, too.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:59PM
Correct me if I'm wrong. Systemd does not use any shell. This has no impact on systemd systems. What you suggest is already the way it works.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:08PM
I don't think you understand. The AC is talking about getting rid of /bin/sh, /bin/bash, /bin/dash, /bin/ksh, /bin/csh, /bin/tcsh, /bin/zsh, and every other shell that exists. Instead of using any of them, systemd can be modified to be the shell.
So this is how it would work: your system boots, the BIOS starts grub, grub starts the Linux kernel, the Linux kernel starts systemd, you can log in to systemd, and then you're good to go. You can use the command line or start up GNOME 3.
But once that's in place, it becomes obvious that we don't need all of that junk. Systemd can be updated to include the kernel functionality. That way we can get rid of Linux. And we also don't need grub, because the BIOS could just start systemd directly. And since GNOME 3 and systemd are already so dependent, GNOME 3 could just be pushed totally into systemd.
So the ideal flow would be: your system boots, systemd starts, and you're good to go.
See how it works? Systemd becomes your entire software stack! It's fantastic, because it does everything! Since there's only one piece of software running, the attack vectors are small. And since there's only one piece of software running, updates become really easy. There's no more need for rpm or dpkg or any other packaging system!
It's clearly the perfect way.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:13PM
The BIOS? What a waste. Just burn systemd into the motherboard's Flash. Then it can take over as soon as power is switched on. The BIOS functionality can easily be integrated in systemd.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:21PM
Well, why even have a computer at that point? One could just have systemd embedded into one's gonads. It will subsume the function of the rest of the body, which can be discarded, and systemd will then be responsible for the core purpose of life: reproduction.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Horse With Stripes on Thursday October 02 2014, @11:14PM
Um ... gonads are a mobile system by default, but battery installation and recharging are a bitch. I'm just sayin'
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday October 03 2014, @07:06PM
That's pretty much how the Sinclair ZX81 [wikipedia.org] worked. One board with only four chips.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 03 2014, @01:11AM
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday October 03 2014, @04:52AM
I heard that if you press control-f while the system is booting it goes into a hidden flight simulator. For some reason the only aircraft available is the Hindenburg.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @07:08AM
full disclosure: i lolled hard
(Score: 3, Informative) by Lagg on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:14PM
Ironically enough, it does in a manner of speaking. Not like the jackass AC above would care to look though. In nspawn.c there's a line that execs /bin/bash if systemd-nspawn isn't passed the opt to search for an init or an explicit shell to run. Can easily be fixed though considering that the line right under it also execs /bin/sh.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:18PM
I don't think that AC is a "jackass". What he described is in fact the systemd "do it all, and do it all poorly" philosophy. Yes, it's a dumb as fuck philosophy, but it's still the systemd philosophy.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:36PM
You know. I don't even care about what people think of systemd, but is this what it's going to be from now on? Is this going to be the theme now? I lay out technical discourse and some jackass responds with a character attack or exaggerated at best claim of systemd's philosophy or politics. I'm so tired of this. Parroting falsehoods doesn't make you look like a thinking person or someone with a good argument, it makes you look like a moron. Step up with real arguments or shut the fuck up and go find a tumblr blog to whine on where your political hyperbole will be much better received. Also it's too bad you don't sign your posts because I'm really starting to think the AC that does literally nothing but political shit flinging on everything vaguely related to systemd is the same person. It really wouldn't surprise me because the depths people go when it comes to this are just about rock bottom.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2, Funny) by Horse With Stripes on Thursday October 02 2014, @11:17PM
You don't sound happy. Perhaps you need more systemd in your life? Not only can it make your systems happy, but it can make you happy too. Systemd, it's like SunnyD, but for your systems!
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Thursday October 02 2014, @11:46PM
Well, don't know if it was intentional but I am now. I chortled. Hard.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @12:56AM
Nobody can "character attack" systemd. It does that by its own lack of technical merit. The best argument against systemd is learning more about it and using it!
I'm not going to regurgitate the problems with systemd here. They're already well known. In case you're ignorant, you can read all about the severe technical problems plaguing systemd [boycottsystemd.org].
Anyone who speaks out against systemd is totally right to do so.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:02PM
Sorry. I failed to notice the facetiousness in your post. I understand what you mean now.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:28PM
Yeah, the design geniuses in the "systemd cartel" could definately improve [soylentnews.org] on the humble CLI.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Foobar Bazbot on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:03PM
They use dash just as a shell for init. Default user login shell is still bash! This is a "good thing".
To be clear:
(Of course all users who don't chsh -s /bin/zsh deserve what they get anyway, so it wouldn't matter if dash was the default...)
This means that any shell script starting with #!/bin/sh is executed with dash, not merely those pertaining to init. Shouldn't be a problem, as one should either use #!/bin/bash or restrict oneself to portable/POSIX shell features, but nominally portable scripts tend to acquire a patina of bashisms when maintained in a /bin/sh -> bash environment.
(Score: 2) by mth on Thursday October 02 2014, @11:43PM
The setup used in recent versions of Ubuntu, Debian, et al. has /bin/sh as a symlink to /bin/dash; the default shell for new users is still /bin/bash.
It's been like that for a while: I remember having to fix some scripts (remove bash-isms or use #!/bin/bash) on a Debian or Ubuntu upgrade that I think was about 8 years ago. So I think most problems in 3rd-party scripts have been fixed by now; it's scripts from Fedora itself and from admins that might stop working.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Friday October 03 2014, @10:21PM
Of course all users who don't chsh -s /bin/zsh deserve what they get anyway
Where exactly are they supposed to have learned about it? I've used Linux for 6.5 years, use the CLI all the time and solve all of my own system issues, yet it was only the past week or two that I've seen any real references to changing the default shell -- and this is the first time I've actually seen the command to do so. When that's the case for a very highly motivated non-programming user like me, there's virtually no chance of regular people that aren't fascinated with computers knowing about it...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:10PM
So what will differentiate Fedora from Debian, if this goes through and happens?
Is it just RPM versus DPKG as the only difference?
They would both use the Linux kernel. They would both run the same software. They would both use dash as the default shell. They would both be infected with systemd. They both come with GNOME 3 by default.
The packaging system becomes almost irrelevant at that point, since they're so identical in every other way.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday October 04 2014, @02:22AM
really? because the next logical shell to switch to is cash
(Score: 3, Interesting) by slartibartfastatp on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:19PM
"Here's my opinion (for the nothing that it is worth) about changing
/bin/sh for security: first somebody would need to do a security review
of dash to "prove" (for some value of "prove") that it is better (for
some value of better) than bash. After all, bash has been around for a
long time now, and as far as I can remember, this is the first security
incident with it that relates to using it as the /bin/sh script
interpreter. It now has a significant amount of attention to look for
more of course."
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2014-October/202877.html [fedoraproject.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:58PM
Well, when the code base is 1 half the size, the job of looking for bugs SHOULD be a lot easier.
On openBSD, the original sh is smaller than Bash, by about half.*
Oddly, the dash executable if 20% larger than bash on my openBSD system.
*note:
/bin/ksh, is byte for byte identical to /bin/sh, and I expect sh is simply a hard link to ksh in openbsd.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:16PM
But does that just push complexity into the realm of the user or the script writer?
Instead of having the shell offer a safe, standard way to implement some advanced shell scripting functionality, do we instead of thousands of independent (and probably buggy) implementations or hacks when supporting a simpler shell?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @11:18PM
FreeBSD does just fine with plain sh. A system shell should be used as glue, not as the end solution. I've installed bash on my systems (my preferred shell), but I've since moved to using strait sh for system scripting about two years ago. Sh is quite capable actually. What about complex tasks? Should you really be using a shell for such tasks?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 03 2014, @12:56AM
Complex tasks are usually just a series of simple tasks.
Break it down to simple shell tasks.
That complex stuff that you would do at that level usually centers around file management, backups, mail, etc.
I could make the case that ANY other programming language approach probably is worse.
Write some code in your programming language of choice, and all of a sudden the maintenance of that becomes a big problem. Compilers come and go, libraries change over time. Its probably not portable. If there was really a need to do that in a programming language there would probably already be a package to do it.
A shell script has a LOT of advantage even when you have some fairly complex stuff to do.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @12:59AM
FreeBSD is also used by competent users and developers. That isn't always the case with Linux, however. Linux shell scripters create absolutely horrid scripts.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday October 03 2014, @03:14AM
FreeBSD is also used by competent users and developers. That isn't always the case with Linux, however. Linux shell scripters create absolutely horrid scripts.
As a professional bash coder (yes paid to write backup scripts for banks all around the midwest) for Linux, I take personal offense at your blanket statement. If my bash scripts don't work on a system they weren't designed for, I'm a bad scripter?
Compared to that sort of mentality Lennart Poettering looks brilliant. Where the fuck do you people come from? I suppose if core team pisses you off, you'll spew something about them after discarding your FreeBSD box, and dust off your trusty Amiga.
Yeah, you hit a nerve. Fuck you.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @11:49AM
My, my, my... You're a sensitive one, aren't you?
(Score: 2) by romlok on Friday October 03 2014, @11:41AM
Oddly, the dash executable if 20% larger than bash on my openBSD system.
FWIW, on my Debian Testing box:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @04:06PM
Pretty sure the BSDs only include Bash 2.05 or something, the 'original' release you'd only have if you used linux from the 90s or maybe very early '00s depending on your distro.
Bash 3/4 is an entirely different beast with a lot more crap added in.
Personally I would've stuck with 2, but at some point I ran into scripts which only ran on bash3+, and it was less of a hassle to just install and forget about it than keep two copies around.
Might finally have motivation to look for another shell now however.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 03 2014, @07:42PM
Openbsd 5.5 package is 4.2.45. It is not installed by default.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:29PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:46PM
> a few lessons about writing shell code
Is there an iOS 8 app for that?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Lagg on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:29PM
I forgot to include a few posts by Lennart in the summary because let's be honest you guys want to see what he says about this stuff and though I'm glad to see that he is considering things like keeping the core package set small it worries me a bit that he doesn't know how attack surfaces work in assuming that dash adds a larger attack surface because it runs alongside bash which isn't very likely unless it was somehow in the same binary, also he's forgetting that ash itself has been around for quite some time. He's also implying that bash's extra builtin crap are "powerful". I have not yet found a single builtin that a coreutil or similar standard core package can't do. Even though I'm trying to stay neutral in this whole systemd thing I just get hit by one discouraging thing after another. Really starts to test one's resolve. Especially with how he says that it'd take a lot of work to fix things to use a POSIX shell, doubtful. I honestly rarely see a #!/bin/bash script and when I do it's because it uses stupid syntactic sugar or something along those lines. He's not doing much to disprove the accusations of him trying to speak for sysadmins while not actually being one when he does stuff like this.
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2014-October/202879.html [fedoraproject.org]
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2014-October/202912.html [fedoraproject.org]
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:57PM
Unbelievable. I laugh out loud and nearly piss my pants whenever I read anything from that guy. Then I remember that people actually take him and his crap seriously, for whatever reason. Unbelievable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:37PM
Seems the guy has a sense of humor and afterall, if systemd is just a bad joke then the design decisions begin to make perfect sense.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by utoddl on Thursday October 02 2014, @11:50PM
Sorry I can't find my Lennart bashing pants today, but I read both of those linked emails, and he raises valid points in both.
(Score: 2) by velex on Friday October 03 2014, @03:56PM
Some of his points are valid in a general sense, but I smell drama. He's coming to the rescue of the poor developers who can't be bothered with using the proper shebang line in their scripts.
My scripts always have bash in the shebang line when I want to use bash features. Anything else is wrong.
From https://lwn.net/Articles/343924/ [lwn.net]:
Ubuntu made this switch three years ago, with the release of Ubuntu 6.10. Note that the default login shell remains bash, only the default /bin/sh used in shell scripts has been changed.
I'm assuming that's what Rahul is proposing.
From Poettering:
I am more concerned about code written by admins and users. I kinda
hope that we don't ship too massive shell programs in Fedora, (well,
except of course autoconf scripts...), but I am pretty sure that shell
is one of the most common languages used by admins to do things, and
that's where we should be really careful to not break things.
Then he says in another post:
You have to maintain + security-fix more code,
since you have two packages to look after (Yes, by adding dash to the
default stack you just put the extra burden on Fedora to quickly
update two packages instead of just one in case of a security
problem).
However, in the original post, which he even quotes in his reply:
FWIW, both dash and mksh is
already packaged in Fedora.
So, what is he saying here? Is he saying that dash isn't currently maintained well? Is he saying that if I'm a Fedora user who uses dash that I should consider another distro?
Also note the subtle trick he uses here. He's attempting to confuse the reader by implying that a security problem in bash implies a security problem in an unrelated package or vice-versa.
He goes on to write:
You create a *lot* of porting work for all those
scripts.
WTF! This coming from the guy who wants to replace udev, dbus, the entire init system, and the kitchen sink with a monolithic piece of software that writes binary logs and has dependencies on a desktop environment?!
That isn't porting work?!
You *break* all scripts that currently reference /bin/sh in
the shebang-line but use bashisms. Also, many of the bashisms are
actually pretty useful, hence you replace a more powerful language by
a crappier one. You create an entirely new problem for our users, by
making them *think* whether they actually mean /bin/sh or
/bin/bash. You confuse users by disallowing certain expressions in
scripts that work fine if you type them on the interactive shell.
Look at what you meanies are doing to the poor users!
I'm fscking sorry, but if you're writing scripts and using bash-isms, put bash in your shebang line! Take responsibility for being cognizant enough of what you're doing! Another solution is to do a quick find and sed to replace the shebang line on existing scripts with the correct interpreter. Please, please don't write code you don't understand.
Poettering's kind of thinking is why we can't have nice things. This kind of thinking is why modern computer systems have grown unreliable and have bug after bug.
I also read this bit on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] that clued me into what's probably really at work:
The reason for using dash is faster shell script execution,[5] especially during startup of the operating system
Isn't that the same reason we're all supposed to jump on board with systemd?
What's clearly happening here is that Poettering sees this as an attack on systemd and is using misdirection, fallacies, and a white-knight mentality (oh, the poor users!) to prevent any alternative boot scheme to gain credibility than systemd.
Disclaimer: I've never used dash. I've also started rolling a new Linux from Scratch for E19 (minus pulseaudio, thankyouverymuch, even if I have to hack some E19 code to disable sound), and I've been learning how rusty my bash skills have become.
(Score: 1) by http on Friday October 03 2014, @01:55AM
You noted,
I cannot believe he does not know how attack surfaces work. It stands to reason it being glossed over by design.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Friday October 03 2014, @02:02AM
Another issue you touch on is that many distros simply symlink "sh" to the Bash binary, so people might well be putting "#!/bin/sh" at the start of their script, but in practice it's not difference from "#!/bin/bash". I suspect that many people scripting will be using Bash features by default, whether they realise it or not, and some of those are probably under the illusion that because their first line is "#!/bin/sh" and the script runs it is going to be portable, coupled with the ubiquity of Bash meaning that they are less likely to experience a situation where they can realise that is not actually the case.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday October 03 2014, @03:57AM
Please mod up. This guy knows what he's talking about.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday October 03 2014, @06:38AM
Not really, when argv[0] has a basename of sh bash starts in posix mode. Like most GNU stuff that has a posix or other spec conformance mode the crap still leaks through to an extent but to say that there's no difference in practice is just stupid.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Friday October 03 2014, @04:28PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday October 03 2014, @02:41PM
I forgot to include a few posts by Lennart in the summary because let's be honest you guys want to see what he says about this stuff and though I'm glad to see that he is considering things like keeping the core package set small it worries me a bit that he doesn't know how attack surfaces work in assuming that dash adds a larger attack surface because it runs alongside bash which isn't very likely unless it was somehow in the same binary, also he's forgetting that ash itself has been around for quite some time.
Oh God! Somebody get me a tourniquet; I'm bleeding from the eyes! We can't resist run-on sentences of this magnitude! :)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday October 03 2014, @11:27PM
If I don't let the thoughts stream out fluently they leak out my ear. True story.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:33PM
All the BSDs as far as I'm aware come with the original sh as the default shell, and you have to build or install bash if you want it. In my opinion it makes sense - you use a simple, tight shell for all the important stuff.
The idea is if you want bash (or another shell) install it on a toor account or use it on another account with sudo.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:15PM
But in the Linux world the closest you can come to the original sh is ksh (and it is tiny by comparison to bash).
In Openbsd, ksh and sh are the same executable.
But realistically, so much of the linux scripts start with #!/bin/bash that the system shell wouldn't end up changing much. It would still launch bash.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:13PM
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Lagg.
This is the kind of news I come to SN to read.
I don't really care about politics or which "innocent" gangsta got shot to death after attacking police today. That shit is irrelevant.
I do care about tech stories like these that will potentially affect me and every other Linux user out there. This stuff is important.
Thank you for your submission, Lagg. This is exactly what I want to see when I come here!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:38PM
> me and every other Linux user out there. This stuff is important.
oblig xkcd [xkcd.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @01:01AM
Why is that stupid comment and that stupid comic marked as "Insightful"? I'm still using Debian on a laptop from 2002. I can watch full screen YouTube videos using their Flash player just fine. I've been able to watch do this since YouTube was launched. That comic was never correct, and it's just plain dumb today.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 03 2014, @04:46AM
That whooshing sound was sadly not the Concorde...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @07:16AM
Using Flash player is plain stupid.
(Score: 2) by E_NOENT on Thursday October 02 2014, @11:59PM
Yes, this was a good submission, so +1 from me, fwiw.
I even enjoy the systemd bashing, however irrelevant it may appear.
"Is this a thing now?" Well, System D bashing is important for us as soylentils because of the following relationship:
"Beta is to Slashdot, what SystemD is to Linux"
I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @01:04AM
There's no systemd "bashing" going on. There's merely discussion of its feature set and architectural philosophy. But given how fucking idiotic all of its functionality and philosophy is, even honest technical discussion can appear as though it's being bashed. It's not possible to say anything legitimately good about it, because it's so awful. Just about the only thing it's good at is pissing people off, dividing communities and destroying Linux distributions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:43PM
@I'd like to see Arch for example start using dash in the core install since even with shell script heavy systems - like those that use sysvinit
arch is systemd. it crashed my laptop 3 times just this week. whee!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @10:50PM
Other than havin to reboot, I've never had a problem with systemd on my laptop. It's on servers, especially with a rolling release distro where we apply upgrades selectively that accidentially upgrading the new systemd dependency / victim of the week fucks things up. We reboot servers for kernel upgrades, if the init system starts erroring on a library upgrade then the init system is broken by design.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @12:27AM
FUCK YOU.
That's YOU.
It doesn't matter if it works for you.
It doesn't work for him.
You disproved nothing you dip shit fuck.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @01:07AM
The parent isn't "flamebait".
Saying "But it works for me!" is an absolutely useless thing to say in any discussion of software bugs or malware (like systemd).
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 03 2014, @12:44AM
Sorry, but these days when I read the Red Hat is in favor of something I remember the it has pushed mono, gnome3, and systemd. So I'm just a bit sceptical of anything they suggest.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @01:10AM
You're absolutely right. What makes it worse is that Debian and Ubuntu are both caving, and forcing this same shitty software on their users. It'd be one thing if it was just Fedora infected with systemd. But it's spreading so far now that only Gentoo and Slackware are remaining as usable Linux distros.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @01:40AM
If you look at it from that perspective many of their decisions make a lot more sense.
(Score: 1) by invictusvoyd on Friday October 03 2014, @01:28AM
will making dash the default shell be any safer? going by that philosophy the entire fedora distro should lose a couple of hundred pounds to be "safer"
(Score: 1) by Nesh on Friday October 03 2014, @09:09AM
Debian linked /bin/sh to dash in Squeeze (v6 2011-02-06), Ubuntu way back in Edgy Eft (6.10 - 2006-10-26).
Of course bash is still available and is still set as default user shell.
But in Ubuntu /bin/sh has been a symlink to dash since 2006.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday October 03 2014, @11:06AM
Some packages insist that /bin/sh needs to be bash. Oracle XE from memory uses /bin/sh for it's scripts, but uses bashisms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @03:31PM
Debian already uses Dash as default /bin/sh because /bin/bash was deemed too slow and bloated. That change happened years ago.
When exactly?
dash (0.5.5.1-2.2) unstable; urgency=low
[ Luk Claes ]
* Non-maintainer upload with maintainer's permission.
* Change the default for the system shell to dash.
* Ship /bin/sh in the package and fix the diversion handling
for it to make sure /bin/sh is always present.
* Set debconf priority to high when upgrading from an existing
system.
* Add versioned dpkg dependency for dpkg-divert --listpackage.
* Add NEWS file about changing /bin/sh.
* Adjusted the debconf template accordingly.
* Make dash Priority: Required
[ Raphael Geissert ]
* Make dash Essential: yes
-- Luk Claes Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:17:31 +0200
Over 5 years ago. On default installed Debian, that bash hole was not an issue.