Mac – What are the differences between /usr/bin/login and /usr/bin/bash

macterminal

Terminal.app has a setting to select which shell it uses, and the default setting is "Default login shell (/usr/bin/login)".
What are the differences between /usr/bin/login and /usr/bin/bash?

Best Answer

Griffo is correct. Now in your scenario, the difference boils down to the following:

if you pick /bin/login, then this program will check in the user database what your default shell is and run that shell as a login shell, thereby invoking the rc files that are run only when the shell is run as a login shell (in case of bash those are /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login and , and ~/.profile.
if you pick /bin/bash, that shell will be executed as a login shell, independently of what shell is set in the user database. This can come in useful when the shell in the user database does not work properly, or you want to be able to use different shells.

As per the comment by Chris Page, the shell is run as a login shell in both cases.

If you have not changed your login shell from the default, which is /bin/bash, and you have not changed the rc files of this shell, then the difference will not be noticeable.

Related Solutions

Is bash in OSX case-insensitive

This is actually a feature of the filesystem of your disk, not bash or Terminal.app.

HFS+ (the Mac filesystem) is usually configured to be case insensitive but case preserving. This means that the file system will consider foo and FoO to be the same, but when you create a new file it will remember which letters where capitalized and which were not.

When you format a disk with HFS+ you can chose whether the file system should case sensitive or not. If you chose to format with UFS (Unix FileSystem) it is always case sensitive, AFAIK.

To check whether a disk is case sensitive, run:

 diskutil info <device>

For example:

 diskutil info disk0s2

Look for the Name: line. If it reads something like Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) it means that it is case-sensitive. If it just reads Mac OS Extended (without the Case-sensitive) then it is only case preserving but not case sensitive.

Change the shell to a different bash version at /usr/local/bin/bash

I don't know if this will populate in the terminal / advanced user account locations, but "The Way This Has Worked For Years"™ in Linux-land is that you must update /etc/shells with the path to the shell location, and then use chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash username to use it.

Simply running chsh without modification to /etc/shells should cause an error indicating you've chosen an invalid shell, in case you're curious.

/etc/shells is a root-owned file, so you must use sudo in tandem with an editor in order to modify it. I hope you're comfortable doing that, else I would highly advise against trying out a non-default shell :).

Summary (steps):

brew install bash, then
sudo vi /etc/shells and add /usr/local/bin/bash to the list, then
chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash [your_username] and restart your terminal in order for your changes to take place

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Is bash in OSX case-insensitive

Change the shell to a different bash version at /usr/local/bin/bash

Related Question