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Re: The perils of editing .bashrc (Attn: base-files maintainer)
- From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>
- To: Rex Eastbourne <rex dot eastbourne at gmail dot com>
- Cc: cygwin at cygwin dot com
- Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 20:12:17 -0400 (EDT)
- Subject: Re: The perils of editing .bashrc (Attn: base-files maintainer)
- References: <81cec73805070716387b6acd83@mail.gmail.com>
- Reply-to: cygwin at cygwin dot com
On Thu, 7 Jul 2005, Rex Eastbourne wrote:
> Is it advisable to edit one's .bashrc? I'd like to put in a bunch of
> customizations, aliases, etc., but I'm intimidated by the message
> saying that my .bashrc will not be updated by setup.exe if I modify
> it. Does this mean that I'll have to put in changes for new programs
> manually? If so, how can I customize my shell without losing
> setup.exe's automation?
What Andrew said. Setup will never touch the .bashrc in your home
directory, whether you modify it or now. The severe-sounding warning you
saw really refers to /etc/skel/.bashrc (copied to every new user's
directory, which is apparently what the base-files maintainer didn't count
on). So yes, do go ahead and customize it -- that's what it's there for.
To the base-files maintainer: John, could you maybe tone the warning down
a bit? Perhaps simply putting the following would be enough (and
certainly wouldn't sound as scary to new users):
"To pick up the latest recommended .bashrc content, look in
/etc/defaults/etc/skel/.bashrc. Modifying /etc/skel/.bashrc directly
would prevent setup from updating it".
I would even borrow Andrew's phrase and say "This is the default .bashrc
file. By all means, customize it to create a shell environment to your
liking." somewhere in the top comments.
HTH,
Igor
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