5 ms·

Edit: Just nevermind. I don't want to be the target of this hate train.

_jal 8y ago
Uh, I find unrelated software messing with my shell potentially catastrophic. We absolutely blacklist software pulling crap like this - it is a loud, blinking demonstration that the packager is incompetent and will do other, potentially less obvious dangerous things out of ignorance or impatience. Or is there a darker explanation? Untrustworthy, in either case.
pjc50 8y ago
It's not a requirement for /bin/sh to point to bash, only that it be a POSIX shell. The user might have chosen "dash" instead, and the one guy out there who doesn't have "bash" installed might find his system no longer boots.
- jwilk 8y ago
  In Debian, bash is an essential package. You can assume it's always installed.
  - teknopaul 8y ago
    You can make assumptions like that if the consequences are not serious. In this case boot fails next time if your assumption is wrong.
    - tankenmate 8y ago
      https://xkcd.com/1132/ https://xkcd.com/1132/
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      "Essential" is not some arbitrary assumption, but a term of art specific to Debian Policy, and a flag applied to specific packages: Essential is defined as the minimal set of functionality that must be available and usable on the system at all times, even when packages are in the “Unpacked” state. Packages are tagged essential for a system using the Essential control field. The format of the Essential control field is described in Essential. https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#essential-packages https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#essential-packages Diversions are addressed in 3.9: https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#maintainer-scripts https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#maintainer-scripts Debian Policy, generally, tells package maintainers, not users, what they may or may not do. Several classes of conflict are listed in the document; Microsoft's scrips violate multiple requirements. The goal and result of this ststem, arrived at over 21 years collaborative development (Policy was first published in August 1996) is a system which provides well over 60,000 packages and behaves surprisingly robustly from the user-administrator's perspective. Which is to say, there are few surprises. Microsoft have violated multiple Policy requirements. This is considered a release-critical bug in distro packages for very good reasons.
  - dozzie 8y ago
    OK, fine, then don't add it to the Depends field. But don't replace randomly things with a symlink to bash just because it's installed. If the scripts fail because /bin/sh is not bash, update your fsckin' broken shee-bang line.
  - kakwa_ 8y ago
    Not necessarily, imagine for example an embedded OS with only dash or busybox based on Debian. Also, even with bash installed, bash doesn't always behave like sh does. A common example is echo: With /bin/sh on an OpenBSD: >>> kakwa@openbsd ~ sh -c 'echo "print\n"' print <new line> >>> With /bin/dash (aka /bin/sh on Debian) >>> kakwa@debian dash -c 'echo "print\n"' print <new line> >>> This is consistent so far. But, now, with /bin/bash >>> kakwa@debian ~ » bash -c 'echo "print\n"' print\n >>> That's why I tend to use printf more than echo in my shell scripts. Also, I'm not a big fan of what RHEL/CentOS/Fedora does symlinking /bin/sh and /bin/bash. It blurs the line between bash and sh, which results a lot of scripts with a /bin/sh shebang containing bashism.
JdeBP 8y ago
Aside from the fact that it leaves a window where there is no /bin/sh on the system, because it is not using atomic replacement, that is not what the script is doing. This is a Debian package. /bin/sh has been the Debian Almquist shell for almost three quarters of a decade at this point. * https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2007/07/msg00027.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2007/07/msg00027.htm... * https://wiki.debian.org/BootProcessSpeedup#Using_a_faster_system_shell https://wiki.debian.org/BootProcessSpeedup#Using_a_faster_sy... * https://wiki.debian.org/DashAsBinSh https://wiki.debian.org/DashAsBinSh * https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh * https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh/Spec https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh/Spec
deleted 8y ago
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_jal 8y ago

Uh, I find unrelated software messing with my shell potentially catastrophic. We absolutely blacklist software pulling crap like this - it is a loud, blinking demonstration that the packager is incompetent and will do other, potentially less obvious dangerous things out of ignorance or impatience. Or is there a darker explanation? Untrustworthy, in either case.

pjc50 8y ago

It's not a requirement for /bin/sh to point to bash, only that it be a POSIX shell. The user might have chosen "dash" instead, and the one guy out there who doesn't have "bash" installed might find his system no longer boots.

jwilk 8y ago
In Debian, bash is an essential package. You can assume it's always installed.
- teknopaul 8y ago
  You can make assumptions like that if the consequences are not serious. In this case boot fails next time if your assumption is wrong.
  - tankenmate 8y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1132/ https://xkcd.com/1132/
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    "Essential" is not some arbitrary assumption, but a term of art specific to Debian Policy, and a flag applied to specific packages: Essential is defined as the minimal set of functionality that must be available and usable on the system at all times, even when packages are in the “Unpacked” state. Packages are tagged essential for a system using the Essential control field. The format of the Essential control field is described in Essential. https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#essential-packages https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#essential-packages Diversions are addressed in 3.9: https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#maintainer-scripts https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#maintainer-scripts Debian Policy, generally, tells package maintainers, not users, what they may or may not do. Several classes of conflict are listed in the document; Microsoft's scrips violate multiple requirements. The goal and result of this ststem, arrived at over 21 years collaborative development (Policy was first published in August 1996) is a system which provides well over 60,000 packages and behaves surprisingly robustly from the user-administrator's perspective. Which is to say, there are few surprises. Microsoft have violated multiple Policy requirements. This is considered a release-critical bug in distro packages for very good reasons.
- dozzie 8y ago
  OK, fine, then don't add it to the Depends field. But don't replace randomly things with a symlink to bash just because it's installed. If the scripts fail because /bin/sh is not bash, update your fsckin' broken shee-bang line.
- kakwa_ 8y ago
  Not necessarily, imagine for example an embedded OS with only dash or busybox based on Debian. Also, even with bash installed, bash doesn't always behave like sh does. A common example is echo: With /bin/sh on an OpenBSD: >>> kakwa@openbsd ~ sh -c 'echo "print\n"' print <new line> >>> With /bin/dash (aka /bin/sh on Debian) >>> kakwa@debian dash -c 'echo "print\n"' print <new line> >>> This is consistent so far. But, now, with /bin/bash >>> kakwa@debian ~ » bash -c 'echo "print\n"' print\n >>> That's why I tend to use printf more than echo in my shell scripts. Also, I'm not a big fan of what RHEL/CentOS/Fedora does symlinking /bin/sh and /bin/bash. It blurs the line between bash and sh, which results a lot of scripts with a /bin/sh shebang containing bashism.

JdeBP 8y ago

Aside from the fact that it leaves a window where there is no /bin/sh on the system, because it is not using atomic replacement, that is not what the script is doing. This is a Debian package. /bin/sh has been the Debian Almquist shell for almost three quarters of a decade at this point. * https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2007/07/msg00027.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2007/07/msg00027.htm... * https://wiki.debian.org/BootProcessSpeedup#Using_a_faster_system_shell https://wiki.debian.org/BootProcessSpeedup#Using_a_faster_sy... * https://wiki.debian.org/DashAsBinSh https://wiki.debian.org/DashAsBinSh * https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh * https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh/Spec https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh/Spec

deleted 8y ago

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