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Red Hat Nullifies Differences Between Bash, Csh

Andreas(R) writes "Red Hat Software has revealed that future versions of the distribution will hide the differences between command-line user interfaces, creating a 'more unified shell prompt experience'. 'I don't mind if they rebrand and unify the GNOME and KDE interfaces,' said one Linux longhair. 'Frankly, I rarely use GUIs. But when they start messing with my CLI, then it's personal. I'm not going to sit here and let Red Hat infect my beloved tcsh with those annoying quirks from bash." Ah, nothing like satire that only a small group will truly grok. *grin*

42 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. Dear god by EggplantMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please don't let RedHat make emacs like vi

    --

    ?-|||-----x<*))))><
    1. Re:Dear god by analog_line · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, God. Please let them remove emacs altogether from the distribution, and all will be well with Red Hat as far as I'm concerned.

    2. Re:Dear god by nufsaid · · Score: 2, Funny

      That is mentioned in the article...

      My favorite bit is the quote from the
      "The head of the Emacs Flame War Re-enactment Society"

      --
      Is this the promised end? Or image of that horror? KING LEAR
    3. Re:Dear god by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      they'll probably be able to knock at least one CD off the distro if they do that.

    4. Re:Dear god by Anonymous+DWord · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why wouldn't you just install the one then? Who needs an OS when you've got Emacs?

      --
      "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
    5. Re:Dear god by bsharitt · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, its great spending a weekend outside in the cold re-enacting flame wars. This year we're doing the battle of Bitkeeper from the Linux kernel list.

  2. Grok? by MondoMor · · Score: 1, Funny

    "Ah, nothing like satire that only a small group will truly grok."

    Just like Lunix howtos.

    I don't know where I ever got the idea that Linux zealots were elitist pricks. I must have imagined it.

  3. bash? csh? i give my users... by dboyles · · Score: 5, Funny

    /bin/false

    It really is much more secure.

    --
    -- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
  4. Shell Game by chrisleonard · · Score: 2, Funny

    Who cares if they change the shell? As long as they publish API's for the middleware pieces, how could we possibly complain?

  5. Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dude, you are right, it's a fake story! It's Satire! THEY ARE NOT REALLY DOING THIS SO CALM DOWN! Dind't the foot as the Icon give you Clue #2? :x:q or was that ^q? Damn Vimacs!

  6. hahaha by sanermind · · Score: 3, Funny
    That's great. Don't bother reading this comment. Nothing insightfull hear.

    ....but DAMN, that was funny. I loved the part about vimacs and emavics.... couldn't stop laughing. I don't understand why some people are posting complaints, like
    How dare a serious news site like /. put this on the main page


    Geesh. I'm glad for it, it brightened my day.
    --

    ---
    the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
  7. Re:bash? csh? i give my users... by psavo · · Score: 5, Funny

    To be sure, I give the fuckers /dev/random. If lucky, it'll screw their terminal and they won't bother me.

    --
    fucktard is a tenderhearted description
  8. Best part from the article.. by schon · · Score: 5, Funny

    This bit had me rolling on the floor..

    The head of the Emacs Flame War Re-enactment Society (a group that re-enacts the great Usenet emacs versus vi flames wars of the 20th Century) said, "Red Hat is destroying our cultural heritage!

    Ahh.. I know guys who belong to war re-enactment societies.. and this about sums them up..

  9. Re:well then, don't use RH by Soko · · Score: 5, Funny

    _But when they start messing with my CLI, then it's personal. I'm not going to sit here and let Red Hat infect my beloved tcsh with those annoying quirks from bash._

    The solution is quite simple: don't use redhat and quit whining. You don't own bash or csh and you sure as hell don't even remotely have the right to complain about the modifications redhat is making. It's free software and nobody is forcing you to use it.


    *blink**blink* Henh?

    Ohhh.... Is this thing on? Good. *AHEM*

    Here ladies and gentlemen we have the common Nolifeium Nonhumourum Slashdoticus. Notice the serious countenance, the white skin and it's most distinctive marking, the flat, bald forehead from all of the jokes that go flying just over it. This particular species is closely related to the Userum Newbius Nocluseies, who also are prone to spouting off at the mouth with no clue and are usually just as humour impared. Please move along now, there's lot's more to see.

    Soko

    (Like the Smarticus Assunum Typesum ... :-p )

    --
    "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
  10. Re:RedHat policy by prockcore · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think RH is limiting choice now.

    Too many options is bad sometimes. I mean what would happen if a news oriented website were to give you the option of reading both regular news and satirical news on the same page?!

    Oh wait..

  11. At least the size would be reduced... by Raleel · · Score: 5, Funny

    by at least one cd, if they removed emacs.

    I told a coworker of mine that the 2.4.x kernel cannot support a statically compiled emacs, because of the 2TB file limit.

    --
    -- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
    1. Re:At least the size would be reduced... by jonadab · · Score: 3, Funny

      A while back, I compared the sizes of source tarballs for Emacs
      21.0.105 versus the then-current milestone of Mozilla. Emacs was
      larger. (I did this comparison because someone had filed a request
      in Bugzilla that the editor have an Emacs emulation mode. I suggested
      that it would be less work to have a Mozilla emulation mode in Emacs.)

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  12. Re:Viper makes me happy by __past__ · · Score: 5, Funny
    M-x viper-mode.
    For the newbies: If you are amazed how well Emacs can emulate lesser editors, note how easy it is to implement. If viper-mode wasn't predefined, making available all the power and expressiveness of vi in Emacs would be as easy as putting the following in your ~/.emacs:

    (defun viper-mode (while (read-char) (ding)))

    (Note to parent poster: The Emacs Lambda Forces are informed. The black helicopters will arrive soon. Resistance is futile.)

  13. I use the new shell .. by Dr.+Awktagon · · Score: 5, Funny

    .. and it's actually pretty good, especially for newbies. For instance, "redhat-list-my-files-in-current-directory" is a little heavily branded, but it makes a lot more sense than "ls" to a new user. And the "Are you sure you want to run 'xyz' (Y/n)" prompts after every command saved my ass a couple times. Getting rid of all commands that can delete files is also great for security, and that's definitely an advantage over other distros.

    The only thing that really tripped me up was that Red Hat mapped "delete character" to the "d" key (probably to fix the whole backspace/delete confusion once and for all). And the character D is mapped to ^X-F4 which is a little hard to type at first but you get used to it. Since they made this change system-wide I learned it pretty fast.

    All in all a step in the right direction. Of course power users can always use another distro, or just type their system's source code onto the hard drive from scratch or whatever it is they do for fun on Saturday nights.

  14. Re:*sigh* by norweigiantroll · · Score: 3, Funny

    you should, 'cause in the next version of RH I predict bash will depend on kmail and nautilus

  15. In related news... by cmeans · · Score: 3, Funny
    Continuing it's efforts to blend various distinct elements of Open Source projects into unified implementations (See previous articles on GUIs and CLIs), RedHat will soon be providing a single application development & scripting language to replace C/C++, Perl, Python, Java, Forth, and Smalltalk.

    The new language doesn't have a name yet, but you can be sure that few will like the idea, many will have an opinion, and noone will read the actual announcement.

    1. Re:In related news... by __past__ · · Score: 5, Funny
      RedHat will soon be providing a single application development & scripting language to replace C/C++, Perl, Python, Java, Forth, and Smalltalk.

      The new language doesn't have a name yet,

      It has. It is called Lisp.

      Heathen.

  16. Re:Vi versus Emacs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    BUT, if you remove all of the VI links that include swear words, EMACS would definitely be the winner.

  17. Re:Red Hat is doing the Right Thing (TM) by tunah · · Score: 3, Funny
    So your line of thinking is:
    1. Don't read article
    2. Post "insightful" comment, completely missing the fact that this was all a joke
    3. Get mocked by me
    4. ???
    5. Profit!
    --
    Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
  18. Re:bash? csh? i give my users... by jpetts · · Score: 5, Funny

    /bin/false

    That is simply not true...

    --
    Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
  19. Re:Vi versus Emacs... by frankthechicken · · Score: 4, Funny

    And according to this VI is more popular than sex, proving that the computer is the geek's tool.

  20. also on that site...linux for your toilet by atari2600 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Bob Hutzfield has put a dozen copies of "Red Hat Linux 10.0" up for auction at eBay.com. He claims that his toilet is the portal to a "temporal vortex singularity" and that the toilet periodically spits out items from the future. Last week, a package containing twelve Red Hat Linux 10.0 shrink-wrapped boxes materialized at the toilet vortex. Hutzfield is now offering them at auction with a minimum bid of US$1000.

    The following press release was taken from the eBay auction page. Hutzfield claims that he found this press release inside the package that emerged from his toilet vortex.

    Click here RH10.0Linux for the toilet

  21. Re:Can't wait for vimacs by MyHair · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wish I could train myself to use my right hand for emacs and the left for vi, but I'm not there yet. Maybe I could do it with two chord keyboards?

    Chord keyboards are too expensive. During troubleshooting a PC last week I had a ps/2 keyboard and a USB keyboard hooked up while trying to get the USB keyboard to work for the power-on password. After finishing I coincidentally had two working keyboards at 90 degree angles in a comfortable position for my hands. (This was a cubicle with a desk on each wall plus the little shelf that goes between them.) For the amusement of a coworker and myself I typed a few sentences and was surprised to see how natural it was for me.

    Now, as many geeks know, Dvorak made one-handed keyboard layouts, one for the left and one for the right. I've had thoughts about learning the left one to keep my mouse hand free (one or two Slashdotters have claimed they do this; I haven't because I'm a tech/sysadmin and use everyone else's keyboards), but now you and I could learn the left- and right-hand Dvoraks for simultaneous vi & emacs usage.

    If we can do that, then we can probably solve that Palestinean-Israeli thing afterwards.

  22. Huh? Am I dumb? by coupland · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why would they even *want* to do this. Like 90% of all Linux users I use the shell chosen by my distro. That's almost 100% Bash. I've done some pretty techie stuff with my system and tend to be a pretty advanced RedHat user but the thought of changing my shell never even occurred to me. After all, it works just great, why would I care? It seems to me only total techie geeks would reject the Bash shell and if they're so damn techie why create a distro that limits this ability. Am I missing something here???

  23. Re:Question by ncc74656 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Why is an article from a humor/satire site (Humorix) being posted main-page to /. ?

    Hover your mouse pointer over the Monty Python foot at the top of the article. What does it say?

    "It's funny. Laugh."

    Hell, the foot itself ought to be a clue as to the nature of the article. If you're a humorless ass, just pass on this article and others like it. The rest of us won't miss you.

    "And now for something completely different..."

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  24. Re:Clippy by skeedlelee · · Score: 2, Funny

    For one fleeting moment I thought someone was doing that seriously. The screenshots page says enough, freakin' hilarious. Ideally there'd be some way to install that so it launched unsuspectingly on some poor coworker.

    Hmmmm.... what's this extra window...

    "Are you sure you want to move left?"

    WTF!? yes I'm sure... [Much time passes]AH!... that should close it...

    "Are you sure you don't want to close the Vigor asistant?"

    Yes I'm sure I want to close it... huh!
    -finally notices the laughing in the background-

  25. Below the belt by Jim+Norton · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Over the years, we've received nearly 1,000 technical support calls from people that have accidentally started vi and couldn't figure out how to do anything -- or even how to quit."

    I resent that! I know how to quit when using vi! ALT-F2! kill -9 vi!

    --
    -- Jim
  26. Re:Ed is the standard editor by josh+crawley · · Score: 5, Funny

    When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi *and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like, 'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.
    Ed, man! !man ed
    ED(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual ED(1)
    NAME
    ed - text editor
    SYNOPSIS
    ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
    DESCRIPTION
    Ed is the standard text editor.
    ---
    Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed because it's ED! "Ed is the standard text editor." And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
    -rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

    Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

    "Ed is the standard text editor." Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

    golem$ ed

    ?
    help
    ?
    ?
    ?
    quit
    ?
    exit
    ?
    bye
    ?
    hell o?
    ?
    eat flaming death
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^D
    ?
    ---
    Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.

    "Ed is the standard text editor." Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.
    ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

    When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!

    TEXT EDITOR.

    When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their "edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

    Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

    ---BELOW this is garbage filled to pass IDIOTIC lameness filter the fuckwads at Slashdot implemented. I know Me how antidest guerge Now heusdys I dont qwnas Prutwew

  27. Re:Will someone please explain to a Windows nerd.. by BigBadBri · · Score: 4, Funny

    You can't be a 'windows nerd' - it's an oxymoron....

    --
    oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
  28. Re:bash? csh? i give my users... by FauxPasIII · · Score: 5, Funny

    >> To be sure, I give the fuckers /dev/random. If lucky, it'll screw their terminal and they won't bother me.

    But if you're supremely unlucky, it'll drop them to a SUID root perl process. Do not taunt /dev/random.

    --
    25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
  29. Re:Oh Gawd, More Holy Wars... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    > http://www.textpad.com - all the editor you'll ever need

    Yes, if _Windows_ is all you ever use....

    EMACS = Eighty Megs And Constantly Swapping...

  30. Laser light show by wwwgregcom · · Score: 2, Funny

    thats funny, I have been using linux now for years, and I still cant quit vi! That has happened to me, accidentally starting vi and issuing a killall command after a worthless ^X-C frenzy, lol. That, belive it or not was what made me used emacs, which I actually ended up learning a completly non-standard way of controlling.

    --
    What signature defines me as a person?
  31. Re:What's funnier? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    The article itself, or the fact that it seems like the majority of posters have failed to:

    A) RTFA
    B) Notice that this is "from the funny-funny-haha dept."
    C) Read the editors comment Hemos left in the little blurb once again clueing them into the fact that the article is a joke just like the ignorant fools who have started to bitch already.

    D) That the story is filed under the Humor icon.

    E) ???
    F) Profit!!!

  32. Re:RedHat policy by enigma48 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Too many options is bad sometimes. I mean what would happen if a news oriented website were to give you the option of reading both regular news and satirical news on the same page?!

    I'd imagine a Chinese state-run newspaper would use it as their prime news source.

    Oh wait..

  33. This is the real story! by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 3, Funny
    Code Taco Emergency!

    Best quotes: HUMORIX WORLD HEADQUARTERS -- Two Humorix unpaid interns were injured earlier today as the result of mass panic induced by an unexpected attack of the dreaded Slashdot Effect.

    The two injured interns are actually specially bred chickens trained to peck the reboot button on our two Windows PCs when the screen turns blue

    ... and .... Preliminary calculations show that the damage caused by the Great Slashdot Effect Attack of November 2002 will likely total several dozen dollars. :)

  34. Re:bash? csh? i give my users... by Isle · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, I always return that in the end of the malloc function if it is succesfull.

  35. Re:edit.com by joto · · Score: 3, Funny
    ObJoke: I tried www.edit.com, but couldn't figure out how to use it.

    ObDisclaimer: Yes, I know what you mean, but this was actually the first thing that came to my mind...