[arch-general] dash as default shell?

[Bardur Arantsson]

On 18/06/2020 06.33, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:
> On 6/18/20 12:11 AM, David C. Rankin wrote:
>> On 06/17/2020 01:18 PM, Piscium via arch-general wrote:
>>> Today I set dash as my default shell [1] on two PCs. We will see if I
>>> get into trouble.
>>>
>>> This question was asked years ago but maybe good to ask again. Could
>>> dash be made the default shell in Arch?
>>
>> Please NO. Bash has been the default, and while there is nothing wrong with a
>> Bourne-again (or Debian Almquist) type shell, it would break more than a
>> decade of setups...
>>
>> If you want Dash, make the change after install.
> 
> You pulled this assertion out of thin air, do you have any proof that it
> "breaks more than a decade of setups"?

OP is the one making an assertion, so the burden of proof is on them.

That said... I suspect most the system-wide breakage that would have
been expected would be due to init scripts and systemd ameliorates that
to a large degree.

> 
> Note that as has already been pointed out, any setup which it breaks is
> inherently flawed, and in addition was broken on Debian, the most
> popular linux distribution by sheer numbers, as well as most non-Linux
> forms of Unix.
> 

Inherent flaws in a setup doesn't mean that shit doesn't break. Ideally,
yes, there would be no flaws, but this is the real world.

Doubtless, we all try to strive towards perfection, but there is no such
thing in practice.

> It's actually in practice very unlikely that this will break anyone's setup.
> 
> Also if you really think Arch Linux is afraid to break people's setups,
> I suggest you reread https://www.archlinux.org/news/python-is-now-python-3/
> 

In practice, I agree that it probably won't break much, but your
arguments largely don't hold water.

Regards and FWIW,