X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org
Message-ID: <47DBCE4C.FF87C0FA@dessent.net>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 06:25:32 -0700
From: Brian Dessent <brian AT dessent DOT net>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: ash/bash postinstall dance [Was: Cygwin doesn't install on   Windows    Server 2008 (x64).]
References: <E6F7A586E0A3F94D921755964F6BE00601674268 AT EXCHANGE2 DOT cs DOT cornell DOT edu> <47DB6508 DOT 50E4B9C9 AT dessent DOT net> <47DBC548 DOT 6090506 AT byu DOT net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-IsSubscribed: yes
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
List-Id: <cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com

Eric Blake wrote:

> Except that the bash postinstall tries to do one other thing - it caters
> to users who prefer ksh, zsh, or the relatively recent posh as their
> /bin/sh.  While it is not the default installation, I also don't want to
> forbid it.  In other words, bash tries to upgrade /bin/sh only if it can
> identify it as ash or bash, and not if it is some other shell.

I thought about that possibility, but:

1. Has this capability ever been formally advertised as supported?
2. How many people out there actually have a non-bash /bin/sh?
3. How many script compatibility issues do they run into when doing this
(aka "how much of a masochist must one be to try this")?

The tradeoff that I have in mind here is saving X number of people the
extra startup overhead of bash having to read and parse a profile.d
script that checks if bash.exe is newer than sh.exe, versus breaking the
ability of Y number of people to have non-bash /bin/sh.  And I contend
that X >> Y by a huge factor.

Brian

--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/