Re: [PLUG] tcsh, csh, ksh, zsh not pre-installed in Fedora?...

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

 > Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:13:39 -0400
 > From: Fred Stluka <fred@bristle.com>
 >
 > I'm setting up a virtual server at Amazon EC2, and noticed that
 > the instance of Fedora Core 8 I created does not have any shells
 > installed in /bin except for sh and bash.  No csh, tcsh, ksh, zsh,
 > etc.  Does this seem odd to you?  I've never used a Unix/Linux box
 > where csh was not installed.  What else might be missing?  So far,
 > it seems to have everything else I've looked for:  awk, sed, perl,
 > grep, more, less, find, etc.

First question, why FC8?  FC11 just came out, why go old?  Second, why 
FC, which is arguably a beta, and has a demonstrably short life-span? 
I'd never use FC (which is actually called just F now) on a server.

Personally, I love Debian on the server and Ubuntu on the desktop.  But 
I have to deal with RHEL at work, so I use CentOS (free RHEL rebuild) on 
servers too.

Based on your FC use I'd recommend using CentOS5.  I was going to say 
you can't go wrong with Debian, but depending on what you want to do, 
maybe you can.  Some vendors only provide RPMs of things, though I just 
noticed that Oracle 10G Express comes in .deb too.  Cool.  (Well, except 
that I loath Oracle with a passion.)

And what do you want csh/tcsh for? 
http://www.google.com/search?q=csh+considered+harmful
<ducks>


 > In any case, any advice on installing tcsh on Fedora?  Where do I
 > get the RPM package?  I've used RPM before to install packages,
 > to check which packages are installed, to check which package
 > had previously installed a specific file, etc.  But, how can I
 > find out what packages are on the server, not yet installed?
 > Is there a convention?  Or a query I can do?  Or do I just have
 > to go to some external repository to see what's available?

You are going to want to read http://www.jpsdomain.org/linux/apt.html 
which will give you a taste of what APT and RPM can do.  It will also 
answer the above question for you (hint: "Find packages that you can 
install").


As you probably know, the major difference between Debian and Red Hat is 
the packager, APT (Advanced Package Tool) for Debian and derivatives and 
RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) for RH and children.  IMO APT is superior, 
though RPM+YUM is a reasonable second place.  The "minor" difference is 
where files are located and how things are controlled...  Sigh...

RPM without YUM (Yellow Dog (Linux) Updater, Modified) is pretty ugly, 
yum is more-or-less mandatory.  Fortunately, it's built in to any decent 
RPM-based distro newer than 5-6 years old. 
http://www.google.com/search?q="RPM+dependency+hell"; for the gory details.


Good luck,
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|      http://bashcookbook.com/
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
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