Hello,

Our Realm Linux environment here at NCSU has had tcsh be the default shell users get for a long time. (Forver probably) MIT was using cshell for users in project athena. And since our system was based off of athena, this made sense back in the day.

These days it seems bash is the most popular shell with Linux distros. Realm Linux actually has support built in for Unity users who have their default shell set to bash. But currently there isn't a way for users to change their default shell. In addition, many lockers do not yet support being "added" under bash. (Most all engineering lockers are fixed for bash but others need fixing...)

If there were a sysnews tool to allow users to change their shell, sort of like how users can adjust their quota, would anyone on this list be interested in seeing that and switchimg from tcsh to bash? A list of users will help persuade the powers that be that work can proceed on this. I have also started seraching our remedy call tracking system but I suspect many more people might request it if it were to be officially supported by the university.

The idea is that we would still allow users to use tcsh if they are happy. But switch to making bash the default for new accounts once all the bugs have been worked out. Users in the college of engineering who log into UNIX (SPARC Solaris 10 via remote.eos.ncsu.edu ) would also be able to use bash since I just fixed that problem.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Gary Gatling      | ITECS Systems
ITECS, BOX 7901   | Operations and Systems Analyst
NCSU, Raleigh, NC | Email: gsgatlin@ncsu.[redacted]
27695-7901        | Phone: (XXX) 513-4572 (5C Page Hall)