bash no longer default

[msknight]

Hi Folks,

This is another bash forehead question from me.

I made some changes to my install and now, my shell environment variable is SHELL='/bin/sh'

I want to change this to start the bash shell every time I open a terminal, but the command...
set SHELL=/bin/bash
...doesn't seem to take.

What file do I have to edit to alter this variable please?

Kubuntu 9.10 - 64 bit, fully patched.

Michelle.

[tnorris]

Re: bash no longer default

There's two ways to do this that I know of.

1) You can update the sym link of /bin/sh to point to bash rather than dash. This will change it for all users of the system:

sudo ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh

or

2) You can change it via User Manager (System Settings->User Manager) or by editing /etc/passwd directly and changing it for just the users you want to have bash. Change the end of the line that starts with your userid in /etc/passwd.

So,

tnorris:x:1000:1000:Tracy Norris,,,:/home/tnorris:/bin/sh

becomes

tnorris:x:1000:1000:Tracy Norris,,,:/home/tnorris:/bin/bash

[Telengard]

Re: bash no longer default

I'd recommend going for tnorris' option #2. The first option, although simple, may have unintended consequences for scripts which aren't Bash aware. For such scripts it is better to have /bin/sh pointing to dash IMHO.

[msknight]

Re: bash no longer default

Thank you very much! I'll use option 2.

[GreyGeek]

Re: bash no longer default

You can also use the env command:

env SHELL=/bin/bash bash