this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The article just describes the how, but gives no reasons for a why.
So, why would anyone move away from the de-facto standard bash, except for some rare circumstances like having a small system and using busybox?
You probably never used fish shell.
Yeah, and I suspect most reading the article haven't either, so the above guy's question stands - what's wrong with Bash in comparison to the others?
I don't use anything other than BASH, but I hear that ZSH has command tab-completion (not just directory tab-autocomplete) similar to PowerShell and also some other cool shit I'm not really bothered to check out since bash is the GOAT.
Bash has that too, but perhaps zsh comes with more commands pre-configured.. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Bash-TAB-completion-tutorial.html
The only thing I use in zsh which I think bash lacks is async writing to rprompt
Nothing wrong with it, it's just boring. Fish shell has some new features that make it nice to use. So does zsh. Tab completions, history navigation, plugins and such.
https://fishshell.com/ should the author include that link in his article?
Why does something have to be wrong with Bash for Fish to be better?
I asked why others are better, I never called Bash shit.
It stands to reason that if people want to switch to something else, then they must have advantages over Bash.
The others have plenty of QoL features like auto-complete, spelling correction, syntax highlighting, etc.
Doesn't mean there's anything "wrong" with Bash by comparison.
I agree that the article lacks the why, but choice is a huge part of Linux. Why Debian and not Fedora? Why KDE and not GNOME? Why Vim and not Emacs?
Each provides something similar, but each is different.
Bash is a great default. I like Bash. However I think ZSH provides better tab completion. The fish shell provides command highlighting.
It's worth trying others to see what works for you.
Fish is actually user friendly and easy to learn. The interactive completions are better than any other shell and are something I don't want to live without.
It differs from bash in some esoteric ways, but any issues you might encounter as a result are easily worked around by putting shebangs in your scrips, which you should be doing anyway, and
bash -c 'your command'.Honorable mention for
nushell, but that one differs from bash a little too much to pick up quickly. However, having an object-oriented shell is pretty sick.Because you're bored. It says so right in the title.
Personally I don't see the point of changing the shell either. Bash is more than good enough for my use and any other shell is going to have the disadvantage of not being the ubiquitous standard so it is always going to have an uphill battle to dislodge bash.
That said, if people want to play around with a new shell just for the sake of it, why not? I like to play around with exotic window managers myself, not because my regular plasma desktop doesn't suffice, but because I like to try something different every now and then.
We do what we must because we can.
To learn something new. Which can be boring and frustrating (depending of how "new" the thing is) but it will be (always) fun in the end.
Why? Because you learned something new.
"Oh, but learning new things is boring!"
Then it's time to (re)evaluate your life choices.
Well, at the moment I have to learn new things on every front, so adding "learning a new shell" is not high on my priority list.
It's in the title: 'Boredom'.
It's just for the of trying something new, which describes a lot of Linux users.