FreeBSD® Unleashed

Changing Your Shell

For most of this chapter, we will use the bash shell because it is the easiest shell for new users to work with. To see what shell you are currently running, type the following command, where foo is your logon name and # is the command prompt:

$ grep foo /etc/passwd

Don't worry if you don't know what this command line means. You will understand it and far more before you are done with this chapter. The command returns a line that looks something like the following:

foo:*:1001:1001::Foo Bar:/home/foo:/usr/local/bin/ksh

The line on your screen will probably be different from this one. For now, all you need to worry about is the last field (the one that says /usr/local/bin/ksh in the example). This is your default shell—in ...