Importing mksh in base

[Devin Teske]

> On Jan 25, 2019, at 9:13 AM, Michael Gmelin <grembo at freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 25. Jan 2019, at 17:57, Baptiste Daroussin <bapt at freebsd.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi everyone,
>> 
>> I would like to import mksh in base, https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm
>> And make it the default root shell (not necessary in one step)
>> 
>> Why:
>> 1/ it is tiny 400k (in the packaged version) all other shells fitting the
>> expectation are bigger
>> 2/ it's default frontend in interactive mode is very close to what most people
>> are used to with bash and shells as default root shell on other BSD and most
>> linuxes
>> 3/ from my narrow window csh as a default root shell is one of the major
>> complaint (usually the first thing a user get faced to) from new comers and
>> also for some long timers who are reinstalling a machine and have not yet
>> installed/configured a bourne compatible shell
>> 
>> What this proposal is _NOT_ about:
>> 1/ the removal of tcsh from base
>> 2/ any kid of denial of the quality and interest or features of csh
>> 
>> What do you think?
> 
> Without knowing mksh in detail, based on your description I’m in favor of replacing csh with something closer to bash as the default root shell. In over 20 years of FreeBSD I didn’t manage to warm up with csh and none of the people I introduced to FreeBSD in that time did either.
> 

Working at Vicor for 10 years, where phk and jelischer used to work, nearly everyone there was well-versed in csh. I learned a lot of cool stuff and features it had to offer (such as "repeat N cmd"). Now the topic of replacing csh root shell with a bourne variant, I can't help but think of those old-hands at Vicor. The people that, every time I have lunch with, teach me ever more lore and impart priceless historical data points.
-- 
Devin