We once upgraded a major research department from csh to tcsh (while also migrating most users to bash). A senior leader complained that when they hit the up arrow, the last command they typed showed up.
I explained how to disable readline
I explained how to disable readline
Was this kind of shell changing disabled? Maybe there’s no way of doing that exec automatically? Is there some advantage to having your shell of choice explicitly listed in /etc/passwd?
I imagine that how it worked for them before is that the up arrow would move the cursor to the previous line into the output of the previous command, while feeding the arrow key escape sequences to the shell prompt as part of the command. IOW, a pretty useless and annoying key right? Why even press it? How did they notice readline?
He also noticed that if you ran 9 "yes" commands on a 8 core machine, the CPU wasn't allocated in 8/9ths units (one process always got a lot less CPU). he was used to much more predictible CPU scheduler on multiprocessor systems (spoilt by TruCluster). Linux later adopted a better scheduler (fair share) so imho he was right on that one, even if "yes" is a terribly performance metric.
If you just want to execute it then it is a footgun - using only the !command syntax.
If you use the !command:p syntax then you are just printing what command has been executed instead of invoking it.
Example.
% uname
FreeBSD
% !uname
uname
FreeBSD
% !uname:p
uname
%I'd be sad to see an educated person refuse interesting new tricks (readline causes no regression or loss right ?)
At this point I don't want to learn any new tricks, either. I'm sticking with bash for the rest of my life.
I'm quite shocked
I'm not 20 something either, I'm not chasing new shiny.. but a simple history access (arrows or search) is not an invasive disruptive toy feature..
alas
It's closer to BSD than it is to Linux. Not super similar, but closer, especially in ways one tends to notice on the command line.
I've used freebsd for years and I still find Mac OS to be the least useful UNIX.
Further, unless I'm missing an important technical detail, Linux could, with some effort, pass the certification process.
A lot of times people would be a lot more receptive if you show them "hey, you can use the up arrow like so if you want!" Then they can choose and adapt at their own pace if they want to, and they're in control of their own systems.
If the tools such as base environment changes way too often, I'd be annoyed as well - not because I don't know how to make the colours go away or set up the proper aliases - but the fact that I need to do it and pause my actual work.
But I considered readline a good addition, not a waste of time and neurons.
ps: I stopped using zsh/fish, my emacs theme is the vanilla theme.. you forget about these 'improvements', for real tasks they don't matter.
But as you say, tools must get out of the way...
If you have a problem with one or two shells but not all of them, then you might want to look within.