this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
320 points (97.9% liked)
linuxmemes
27339 readers
389 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
- Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudo in Windows.
- No porn, no politics, no trolling or ragebaiting.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
5. π¬π§ Language/ΡΠ·ΡΠΊ/Sprache
- This is primarily an English-speaking community. π¬π§π¦πΊπΊπΈ
- Comments written in other languages are allowed.
- The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
- Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
6. (NEW!) Regarding public figures
We all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations.
- Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
- We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
- Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed.
Β
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I HIGHLY recommend using bash and zsh as posix-compliant shells at the beginning, then if you want something different; you can use whatever the hell you want. Nushell, fish, etc.
Why? All the usual shell scripts don't use Fish as interpreter.
No posix compliance is a headache. (Where the hell are my aliases!?) And also most scripts need to be executed in a posix-compliant shell.
Simple. Just add #!/bin/bash to the start of your script and call it a day.
Or use #!/usr/bin/env bash if you're goated with the sauce. This won't work if you're not goated with the sauce.
Those who are goated with the sauce know what's up.
Whatever you do, do not link /bin/sh to /bin/fish.
why use aliases (they exist in fish) when you can use abbreviations and your history isnt determined by whatever you set your aliases up as? If you change an alias, your history does not reflect that. If you use abbreviations, your history is perfectly usable
The fuck is an abbreviation? Is it a knock-off alias?
basically a text expansion. I have g=git, so when I type "g push" after I hit space after g, it expands it to git in the terminal as if i just typed out git myself. My history doesnt show "g push" it shows "git push" before I push enter
https://fishshell.com/docs/current/cmds/abbr.html
Been using fish for years and did not know this.
That's why there is that shebang thingie in first line. Distributions like Debian use an entire different shell from bash for scripts: https://manpages.debian.org/buster/dash/dash.1.en.html
WIll I be able to take my shell with on to every other computer I meet ? I mean, these things are tiny, but how portable are shells ? I don't want to learn a bunch of useful custom commands and then become frustrated to do anything on every computer other than mine.
That's why I have a qwerty keyboard, I don't want to become useless whenever I have to use a keyboard that isn't my keyboard...
Fish is not the worst in this regard, because:
But there may still be situations where it's annoying, like if you're working in a container, then you likely don't want to mount your
fishexecutable every time.But I also have to say I don't find it too big of a deal.
I still use Bash for scripting (just throw a
#!/bin/shor#!/bin/bashat the top of your script, like you should anyways), and then for interactive use, not that much of the shell syntax comes into play anyways.And if I ever do need to copy a complex Bash command into an interactive shell, I can just run
bash, then run the command in there and thenexitback out.Shell configs are hard to move. Some in $HOME/.config , some in .[idk]rc files, etc.
It's messy. Unless you write everything you modify. If you did not do that up to now...good luck moving shell configs.
What? No they arenβt hard to move. Theyβre usually just one file. Copy to your new machine and done.
I have no shell configs of any kind because it seemed like everytime I used another computer, I would not have them and I would end up having the re-learn everything.
So instead I google every command every time or ask chatgpt, like this
I find it very annoying there's isn't a reliable way to use alias or shells, functions and stuff.
What I do is store my dotfiles in a git repository, and leave symlinks to the files in that repository. Then, when I move to another computer, pulling over all my configuration consists of doing a
git pullto pull the git repo over and then running a command to set up the symlinks on that new computer. I can also make changes and selectively push things in. Some things need to be specific to a computer, and those don't go in.I use a homebrew script to set up the symlinks. A number of people use GNU stow for this.
kagis for an example of someone using stow
https://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-your-dotfiles.html?round=two
If you edit the symlinks in emacs (and I imagine vim), it picks up on the fact that they're symlinks into a git repository and that they're version-controlled.
So, like:
Have a bare git repository on home machine, the "master" copy.
Every machine with an account has a non-bare dotfiles git repository checked out and symlinks pointing into that repo.
Make any changes on a given machine like you normally would, then git commit them to the local non-bare dotfiles git repo and push them to the master repository.
If setting up on a new machine, pull the git repository, and then run the command to set up the symlinks.___
That does sound like a good plan and I do have my own git server but
Can I expect to be able to do this in the various work shells I come across ?
Or do I risk becoming afoul of IT security ?(especially as it is not practical to ask each of them)
I mean, that's not a question I can answer for you. I have never had a problem, myself, but I have no idea what your professional situation is. There are a shit-ton of ways to move git repositories around. If you can ssh out, if you can move physical storage in and out, if you have https out (though that'll be unidirectional in). I doubt that a typical IT department is going to care about you moving your dotfiles in, so if they do block something, probably worth a try just saying "I just want to pull my dotfiles from home; what's a good way to do that?" My guess is that most IT departments aren't going to have an issue with that. If you work for an intelligence service or something that has really super-stringent security requirements, then having any data movement in or out may be more of a headache.
I would be careful to avoid sticking credentials (keys, passwords, anything like that) in any git-managed dotfiles. Not an issue for most software, but there are a few packages that will do that (
neonmodem, a BBS-themed console Linux Lemmy client, does that...was just trying it yesterday.) You don't want to be dumping your home credentials all over in your git history, and work isn't going to want you pushing work credentials out.