On Monday, August 26, Bash will replace C-shell (csh) as the login command-line interpreter, or shell, on systems running CAEN’s Linux environment. Bash is the default shell for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Mac OS X systems, and CAEN is adopting this convention.
After the change to bash, .cshrc, .login, and any other csh scripts invoked by those scripts will no longer modify one’s login environment. Any functionality from those scripts that is desired after the change to bash must be re-implemented in a bash script.
The csh command will still be available and C-shell scripts can still be run from the bash command line prompt. Typing csh -l at the bash command line prompt will invoke the csh-based login environment.
Instructors, GSIs and TAs should use environment modules to make modifications to the CAEN Linux environment required for their course materials. Using environment modules in courses will allow students to dynamically create a customized session for the course without changing their default Linux environment settings. For example, environment modules would allow students in a course to easily use a different version of gcc than the default version in the CAEN Linux environment.
CAEN can assist instructors in creating environment modules for their students, and updating course materials. Instructors who require assistance should contact CAEN, and provide a copy of the course materials in question.
To receive future communications on the change to bash and other news about CAEN’s Linux environment, join the [email protected] MCommunity group.
Bash References
UNIX Shells:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_shell
Bash Shell:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash_%28Unix_shell%29
Bash Reference Manual:
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html