[Bio-Linux] zsh

[Tim Booth]

Hi Tony, all,

Nowadays there's probably little to choose between bash and zsh in terms
of features, so as Stewart says the primary motivation is historical
(all our documentation refers to zsh and our existing users are used to
it).  Personally I like the little conveniences in zsh - things like:

ls /m<tab><tab>

cycles through the completion options rather than just displaying them.
And:

echo `pwd`<tab>

replaces `pwd` with the command result in-place.  Also, pressing 'Alt+Q'
lets you push the current command buffer aside and you can add an
RPROMPT as well as a PROMPT etc. etc.

Since we're on the subject I'm going to add a blatant plug.  Since I've
started using Bio-Linux 5 I've collected a variety of tips and tweaks
that make it work better for me.  I'm sticking them on a blog in case
anyone else finds them useful and I'll be aiming to add about one post a
week for the next few months.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/blog/avarus-108601/

I'll be putting up some stuff about Z-shell quite soon.

Cheers,

TIM

On Tue, 2009-02-17 at 18:03 +0000, Stewart Houten wrote:
> Hi Tony,
> 
> On Feb 17, 2009, Tony Travis <a.travis at abdn.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Is there any reason why "zsh" is the default shell in Bio-Linux 5.0?
> 
> Yes, it was a conscious decision on our part.  The reasoning predates
> me but as I recall there was at least one piece of software on
> Bio-Linux that had problems running under bash.  I don't remember the
> details but I'm sure Tim will when he gets back later this week.
> 
> Stewart 
> 
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-- 
Tim Booth <tbooth at ceh.ac.uk>
NERC Environmental Bioinformatics Centre 
at CEH Oxford
+44 1865 281 975