A new shell?

cactus · 2005-12-19 22:11:23

Has anyone tried this?
Fish -- http://arstechnica.com/articles/columns … 1218.ars/2

Looks interesting.

lucke · 2005-12-19 22:43:02

I can only say that it has been in AUR for some time ;-) Haven't used it myself. (/me hugs his zsh)

cactus · 2005-12-19 23:03:49

ack. I duped!
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=17206

I still use bash myself.. I don't often feel like I am really missing anything either. I dunno..

Gullible Jones · 2005-12-19 23:11:37

I like bash, but fish looks better designed for integration with a desktop. This could make Linux much more friendly to new desktop users, and could help people get accustomed to the command line faster.

On the other hand, this desktop integration thing might not be good, even though it appears to be done in a secure fashion. Do we really want to implement mimetype stuff on machines that will never run X?

Dusty · 2005-12-19 23:14:56

who's this we?

I don't see why new users should have to become accustomed to the command line. There's nothing wrong with making computers easy for end users to use, and generally point and click has much less cognitive load than remembering commands. The best command line would be able to present all available commands on-screen without any of them getting lost in the mess.... which ends up being a point and click interface anyway!

Dusty

cactus · 2005-12-19 23:54:11

I am not sure about the fish feature of a global (across fish instances even) variable space. I think that would be one hell of a security issue myself.. depending on how exactly it is implemented.

An interesting idea, but it scares me...

shadowhand · 2005-12-19 23:55:56

Just tried it. It's kinda nice, but slightly annoying too.

- The colorized output is nice.
- The tab-completion has new tricks, but it doesn't complete sudo commands (most shells don't, and it annoys me to no end), and doesn't seem to have the level of auto-completion that zsh has. (bash auto-completion is just horrid.)
- There doesn't appear to be any way of setting the prompt. (Nerd points -100).

Other than that, it seems like it's Yet Another Shell with some nifty color tricks. w00t? Nah, I think I'll keep my zsh, thanks.

Gullible Jones · 2005-12-20 00:06:37

Dusty wrote:

don't see why new users should have to become accustomed to the command line. There's nothing wrong with making computers easy for end users to use, and generally point and click has much less cognitive load than remembering commands. The best command line would be able to present all available commands on-screen without any of them getting lost in the mess.... which ends up being a point and click interface anyway!

Why not? Knowledge of how to use the command line makes Linux easier to use, and speeds up certain tasks. It's not hard to learn, and lot of Windows users already have some experience with the DOS shell. The basic commands are not hard to remember: copy -> cp, move -> mv, list -> ls, etc. Back in the days of DOS, you used a command line all the time unless you had a Mac. A GUI is nice, but we shouldn't go to great lengths to hide the CLI. Sure, the occasional users of a live CD doesn't need to use the command line. But someone switching to a Linux desktop at home? It could help them a lot.

Dusty · 2005-12-20 00:08:17

I don't see a lot of Windows users using the command line.

Dusty · 2005-12-20 00:08:27

better yet, macos users

cactus · 2005-12-20 00:14:51

I know many mac osX users who use the command line.

Some things are just easier and/or faster to do from a command line.
Some things are easier/faster to do with pointy-clicky.

And.. here is the biggie.. it often depends on the person, as to which is better/faster...
*gasp*
*croud applauds*

Dusty · 2005-12-20 00:17:02

cactus you fool!

its spelled crowd, not croud. ;-)

Dusty

cactus · 2005-12-20 00:24:47

o.O
As I trip the light fantastic..I stub my toe on the door stoop. Egads..

phrakture · 2005-12-20 00:36:57

shadowhand wrote:

There doesn't appear to be any way of setting the prompt. (Nerd points -100)

Hahah, that was good.
Personally, I don't have any problems with bash_completion... it's fast enough for me... but I haven't tried zsh's in so long, I have no point of reference.

jellywerker · 2005-12-20 03:07:15

completion? meh, who needs completion, if you look in irc everyone needs the typing practice anyways

shadowhand · 2005-12-20 05:15:42

jellywerker wrote:

completion? meh, who needs completion, if you look in irc everyone needs the typing practice anyways

You may be onto something. :shock:

bash's completion is MUCH slower than zsh's. I mean, painfully slower... Sometimes I think about stabbing a pencil in my keyboard while I wait for it to complete something.

Fun Shell Fact of the Day: GoboLinux is the only distro I know of that uses zsh as the default shell.

Neuro · 2005-12-20 09:07:12

shadowhand wrote:

bash's completion is MUCH slower than zsh's. I mean, painfully slower... Sometimes I think about stabbing a pencil in my keyboard while I wait for it to complete something.

Right. Are there any other advantages of usign zsh over bash? Any really noticeable ones? And is zsh compatible with bash when it goes about scripts, (C-like loops, arithmetic operations, etc) or does it introduce some new constructs?

I've been toying with the idea of switching to zsh and trying it out, but apparently I'm just too plain lazy

Moo-Crumpus · 2005-12-20 09:31:41

Dusty wrote:

I don't see a lot of Windows users using the command line.

I do.

postlogic · 2005-12-20 09:52:36

IRC should have word completion.

lucke · 2005-12-20 10:28:12

Primo, grml favours zsh, yet it's a livecd.

Secundo, fancying Windows's CLI is kind of hard, considering how limited and unfriendly it is (no autocompletion, no history, not many tools provided - or am I missing something here?).

I wanted to introduce you to tertio, but I guess it stayed late in bed :-/

Gullible Jones · 2005-12-20 11:54:07

cactus wrote:

I am not sure about the fish feature of a global (across fish instances even) variable space. I think that would be one hell of a security issue myself.. depending on how exactly it is implemented.
An interesting idea, but it scares me...

Oh my... I do not like that. :shock:

It seems that, as of late, many Linux developers have been throwing security out the door... :shock:

Snarkout · 2005-12-20 14:06:41

Dusty wrote:

who's this we?
I don't see why new users should have to become accustomed to the command line. There's nothing wrong with making computers easy for end users to use, and generally point and click has much less cognitive load than remembering commands. The best command line would be able to present all available commands on-screen without any of them getting lost in the mess.... which ends up being a point and click interface anyway!
Dusty

I disagree. I think that the complete lack of understanding of what a computer is, and what it does, has lead to the major rift in what people require from computer and what they can do with it. That is to say, they store ALL their most valuable data on a single hard drive, have no backup scheme, have no understanding of how to keep their antivirus software up to date, click NO every time a popup asks "Do you want to allow msoe to connect to the internet?" and generally either live in fear or ignorance.

When they get themselves a nice fat sober infection, they can't really tell since they already have hotbar, coolwebsearch, comet cursor, banzai buddy, gator, and 20,000 different bogus registry keys gumming up their machines. A week later, when their ISP shuts them down, they scream blue murder. Either that, or their hard drive fails (or OS gets so corrupt it cannot be recovered outside of a forensics lab), taking with it every single shred of information that's important to this person, including their finished 2000 page manuscript, their address book, and their dead grandmother's recipe for oatmeal cookies.

I'm not really in favor of government intervention, so I can't really recommend the "license to use a computer" approach I hear espoused, but I do think people are doing a great disservice to themselves and a greater disservice to the world at large by not understanding, at least to some degree, that there's more to running a computer attached to a network (WWW) than clicking "OK."

It has been said that Mac OS is a superior product and is more secure than Windows, and while I agree to a certain extent, the situation is the same. People find interesting ways to break even OS X. Even with the total lack of viruses and malware out there for it.

/rant

Snowman · 2005-12-20 15:30:13

lucke wrote:

Secundo, fancying Windows's CLI is kind of hard, considering how limited and unfriendly it is (no autocompletion, no history, not many tools provided - or am I missing something here?).

Unless I'm confusing it with Cygwin's CLI, the Windows XP CLI has autocompletion and history. It's friendlier that the CLI in Win95, for sure. However, the lack of CLI tools (unless you install them seperately, e.g. Cygwin) reduce its usefulness.

shadowhand · 2005-12-20 16:01:45

Neuro wrote:

Right. Are there any other advantages of usign zsh over bash? Any really noticeable ones? And is zsh compatible with bash when it goes about scripts, (C-like loops, arithmetic operations, etc) or does it introduce some new constructs?

Not particularly. It's just little things. Like case-insensitive completion. Or correction (ie: type in 'exti' and it asks if you mean 'exit'). The globbing options are bit more refined and less broad than bashes (ie: you have to be a bit more exact when you use a wildcard). Generally speaking, the only incompatibilities between bash and zsh arise with scripts that use globs (I had to fix a couple when I switched over).

There are a lot of subtle differences between zsh and bash that make zsh much more powerful to use, but you have to use it to see the difference. (zsh has better prompt support. Nerd points +100.)

lucke · 2005-12-20 16:04:45

shadowhand wrote:

(zsh has better prompt support. Nerd points +100.)

Yay for RPROMPT! :-)

Arch Linux

#1 2005-12-19 22:11:23

A new shell?

#2 2005-12-19 22:43:02

Re: A new shell?

#3 2005-12-19 23:03:49

Re: A new shell?

#4 2005-12-19 23:11:37

Re: A new shell?

#5 2005-12-19 23:14:56

Re: A new shell?

#6 2005-12-19 23:54:11

Re: A new shell?

#7 2005-12-19 23:55:56

Re: A new shell?

#8 2005-12-20 00:06:37

Re: A new shell?

#9 2005-12-20 00:08:17

Re: A new shell?

#10 2005-12-20 00:08:27

Re: A new shell?

#11 2005-12-20 00:14:51

Re: A new shell?

#12 2005-12-20 00:17:02

Re: A new shell?

#13 2005-12-20 00:24:47

Re: A new shell?

#14 2005-12-20 00:36:57

Re: A new shell?

#15 2005-12-20 03:07:15

Re: A new shell?

#16 2005-12-20 05:15:42

Re: A new shell?

#17 2005-12-20 09:07:12

Re: A new shell?

#18 2005-12-20 09:31:41

Re: A new shell?

#19 2005-12-20 09:52:36

Re: A new shell?

#20 2005-12-20 10:28:12

Re: A new shell?

#21 2005-12-20 11:54:07

Re: A new shell?

#22 2005-12-20 14:06:41

Re: A new shell?

#23 2005-12-20 15:30:13

Re: A new shell?

#24 2005-12-20 16:01:45

Re: A new shell?

#25 2005-12-20 16:04:45

Re: A new shell?

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