How to change default shell?

[Brad Lushman]

I tried in Linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca that is broken as the prof said.
Also tried in student.cs.uwaterloo.ca, It has no error.
(I used the commend chsh yx2dai /bin/bash)
it changed to [224]% That's not bash isn’t it?
Could someone help me?

If you want to know for sure which shell you're running, type the command

finger yx2dai

(Others: substitute your own username, of course.)

It will tell you your shell, among other things.

If the prompt doesn't look right, the problem may be that you don't have a
proper .bashrc file in your home directory (one of the things it does is
set your prompt). Don't forget, also, that it takes a few minutes for the
shell change to propagate back to the Linux machines. At any rate, if
troubles persist, come to office hours.

Brad

[Stephen Pisani]

I tried in Linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca that is broken as the prof said.
Also tried in student.cs.uwaterloo.ca, It has no error.
(I used the commend chsh yx2dai /bin/bash)
it changed to [224]% That's not bash isn’t it?
Could someone help me?
Thank you.

I got the same weird display when I set my login shell to bash. I tried
to set it to /bin/bash but I think it became /xhbin/bash, I can't
remember. Either way, I changed the default back to /xhbin/tcsh. If you
really need a bash shell, executing bash from tcsh works fine and brings
up the normal prompt that ends in a $.

[Brad Lushman]

Post by Stephen Pisani
I got the same weird display when I set my login shell to bash. I tried
to set it to /bin/bash but I think it became /xhbin/bash, I can't
remember. Either way, I changed the default back to /xhbin/tcsh. If you
really need a bash shell, executing bash from tcsh works fine and brings
up the normal prompt that ends in a $.

Don't let the /xhbin part spook you. This is a peculiarity of the MFCF/CSCF
environment. I don't know all of the details, but some time ago MFCF developed
a program called xhier to make it easier to distribute software to a large
number of machines. The xh in xhbin just means that your shell has been
changed to an instance of the shell that is under xhier's control. It's
still bash.

Brad

[Dawn Keenan [CSCF]]

There was a problem with 'chsh' on linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca which
should be fixed now. It may take up to 15 minutes for the change in
your login shell to appear to take effect due to caching.

--Dawn, CSCF

[yx2dai]

Thank you!
My shell is changed. I have some questions?
1- Is there a difference between the bash in xhbin and bin? or is
doesn’t matter?

2- how do I set up the init file for bash. I put a .bashrc file in the
home dir. it doesn’t seem to be working.

Thank you very much.

Post by Dawn Keenan [CSCF]
There was a problem with 'chsh' on linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca which
should be fixed now. It may take up to 15 minutes for the change in
your login shell to appear to take effect due to caching.
--Dawn, CSCF

[Fraser Gunn]

They are the same. More precisely, on the linux.student.cs machines,
/xhbin/bash is merely a symbolic link to /bin/bash. E.g.:

linux028$ ls -l /xhbin/bash /bin/bash
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 917888 Aug 10 2010 /bin/bash
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Feb 17 2011 /xhbin/bash -> /bin/bash

-- Fraser Gunn, CSCF


On Fri Sep 16 18:09:57 EDT 2011, yx2dai wrote:
...

Post by yx2dai
My shell is changed. I have some questions?
1- Is there a difference between the bash in xhbin and bin? or is
doesn't matter?

...