iB::Topic::Z shell, fish

	Damn Small Linux :: Damn Small Linux Board The DSL Forums

» Welcome Guest
[ Log In :: Register ]

Damn Small Linux Board » MyDSL Extensions » Apps » Z shell, fish

		Mini-ITX Boards Sale, Fanless BareBones Mini-ITX, Bootable 1G DSL USBs, 533MHz Fanless PC <-- SALE $200 each!
		Get The Official Damn Small Linux Book. DSL Market , Great VPS hosting provided by Tektonic

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

Topic: Z shell, fish, any demand for zsh and/or Fish?

< Next Oldest | Next Newest >

mikshaw

Group: Members
Posts: 4856
Joined: July 2004

Posted: Feb. 17 2007,06:45

I just started experimenting with zsh and fish in Slackware, and from what I've seen so far they both have certain benefits over Bash, depending on what your needs and desires are for an interactive shell.

I haven't yet used or even tried to run either in DSL, but I am going to at least try zsh.

If there is any significant demand for them (more than just me), I'd be willing to make a uci package or two (although I have a feeling fish might be a complicated thing to get into DSL). Since DSL already has bash and ash, I don't know if it would be very popular.

Anyway, just curious. If not, I'll just continue on my own weaving path.

--------------
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

^thehatsrule^ Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 3275
Joined: July 2006

Posted: Feb. 17 2007,07:41

Haven't heard of or used fish before.. but I would definitely welcome zsh.

I know that newer debian/ubuntu are using dash ( ->ash) as their default /bin/sh now instead of bash (that used to be a requirement for a lot of the scripts). But isn't the ash that's used by DSL startup very stripped down and therefore quite limited?

mikshaw

Group: Members
Posts: 4856
Joined: July 2004

Posted: Feb. 17 2007,15:38

I'm not sure if ash is stripped down, but it is limited compared to bash (according to the docs). I haven't even tried it personally, though it seems like it would be a good idea to become familiar with it for scripting purposes. If Debian and Ubuntu are using it as default it seems that distributing sh scripts specific to bash might be the equivalent of distributing programs that are specific to KDE.
I decided to try zsh first because I had heard a great amount of praise for it by people who like the power and flexibility of bash but prefer something lighter.

Fish is a fairly new shell that was designed to be more user-friendly and noobie-friendly than the typical interactive shell. It's got syntax highlighting, more robust tab completion, and less complex syntax. I'm guessing it probably can't be forced to be bourne-compatable like Bash can, but I think it's mostly for interactive use anyway.
http://fishshell.org/

--------------
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

^thehatsrule^ Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 3275
Joined: July 2006

Posted: Feb. 17 2007,18:56

Yes, zsh is lighter, but still bourne compatible. Actually, dash/ash (bsd), ksh (unix), bash (linux), zsh are supposed to be all bourne shell compatible (the things in parenthesis are the o/s origins/firsts afaik). Bash just seems to have everything, and is extended by quite a bit.

There's also a busybox shell capability for ash, but I wonder how far it's been developed - I've only used it a few times. (Don't think it was compiled into DSL's busybox binary though)

Fish looks quite interesting at first glance - the pretty colours look great for the syntax hilighting :P

3 replies since Feb. 17 2007,06:45

< Next Oldest | Next Newest >

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

Damn Small Linux Board » MyDSL Extensions » Apps » Z shell, fish