FreeBSD is quickly becoming my favorite server operating system. However, comming from the GNU/Linux world, there are certain things that Linux distributions and Mac OS X to a certain point provide that are not available on a default FreeBSD installation. The most notively are the default shell and text editors. The default shell for standard users is /bin/sh (NOT BASH!) and for root is the C-Shell. While vi is indeed installed on a default FreeBSD installation, it is not the vim (vi improved) that I’ve learned to enjoy and love all these years.

Therefore anyone wanting to fully enjoy a modern Unix system should install both bash and vim on there systems. Thanks to the FreeBSD ports collection, installing these two applications is really simple.


[root@freebsd01]# cd /usr/ports/editors/vim
[root@freebsd01]# make install clean
[root@freebsd01]# rehash



[root@freebsd01]# cd /usr/ports/shells/bash3
[root@freebsd01]# make install clean
[root@freebsd01]# rehash
[root@freebsd01]# chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash tony
[root@freebsd01]# chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash root
[root@freebsd01]# ln -s /usr/local/bin/bash /bin/bash