Re: Feature discussion - startup files

[Fotis Georgatos]

Hi Rob,

IMHO, the crap of vendors that you mentioned is very real and, it is largely caused by -and not causing-
lack of a single place for applying environment tuning/control. Compare bash vs zsh:
http://blog.flowblok.id.au/static/images/shell-startup-actual.png # if you have similar diagram for your distro, please post!

fi. HPC systems rely on environment modules [1] and bash is still particularly tricky while using it, after 2 decades :-( .

Users on large platforms flee towards other shells (in practice: that's zsh) due to this sticky issue,

which is certainly fixable and, we might even get a chance to fix some of bash_logout's annoyances, too.

Fotis

[1] environment modules is a well tried technology, first appearing in year 1991! ;
    if you have ever cought yourself to have a messy bash initialization file, check it out because it really helps.

    In fact, with it you could have most of the common configuration for a handful of shells *in a single place*.

On 22 December 2015 at 04:11, Rob Foehl <rwf@loonybin.net> wrote:

On Mon, 21 Dec 2015, Chet Ramey wrote:

My position is that a feature like this is not popular enough to be made
the default, and the way to move forward and make something like it
available is to make it a configurable option.  The standard way to do
that is to make it an option in config-top.h, but it could be settable
using configure.

My two cents: bash doesn't need any more initialization files.  There are already too many opportunities to screw around with what the shell does at startup that cannot be easily overridden or avoided by the user, and vendors already abuse this with all manner of crap they think desirable.

Another avenue for this sort of behavior, configurable or otherwise, will just result in more of the same -- with the same claims of "no support!" any time anyone tries to change the as-shipped defaults.  The end result will be no different from the current situation.

Further, the "do it, regardless" aspect of this proposal is particularly worrisome: the last thing anyone needs is another unconditionally sourced system-wide file in the style of bash_logout.  No more, please.

-Rob

--

 

echo "sysadmin know better bash than english"|sed s/min/mins/ \
  | sed 's/better bash/bash better/' # signal detected in a CERN forum