Out of the box

Out of the box

[Lloyd]

Happy new year! I was setting up a new apple computer recently and I
was disappointed that zsh still comes completely unconfigured, ex
defaults to no history.

It got me wondering if there are any Unix or Linux distributions that
exceed expectations with zsh configured out of the box?

Thank you,
-- 
I can't grow without light,
Lloyd
http://foolswisdom.com/

Re: Out of the box

[Frank Terbeck]

Lloyd wrote:
> Happy new year! I was setting up a new apple computer recently and I
> was disappointed that zsh still comes completely unconfigured, ex
> defaults to no history.

Indeed, zsh's defaults are pretty bare bones unconfigured and that's
largely due to the wish not to break existing setups. Zsh does contain a
setup wizard, that should help with initial setup in case you don't have
a setup in ‘~/.zshrc’ upon the first invocation of the shell.

> It got me wondering if there are any Unix or Linux distributions that
> exceed expectations with zsh configured out of the box?

Personally, I think that vendors should not screw too much with the
default setup of a program system-wide; not even mentioning the large
blobs of configuration that newbie's don't have a chance to debug in
case something fails.

That's being said, I'm one of the guys who help with the zsh confi-
guration of the grml Linux live distribution, that you can find at:

    http://grml.org/zsh/

It's a massive setup and I think for the use of a live installation,
that's fine. I still stand firm of the issue of handing large setups to
absolute beginners, for the reason I gave above.


Regards, Frank

-- 
In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
                                                  -- RFC 1925

Re: Out of the box

[Ray Andrews]

On 01/02/2015 10:31 AM, Frank Terbeck wrote:
> Lloyd wrote:
>
> It got me wondering if there are any Unix or Linux distributions that
> exceed expectations with zsh configured out of the box?

If you find one, please let me know, I'll send them a donation and a box 
of chocolates.

<anecdote>
About 15 years ago, when I got my first Linux distro actually working 
(Slackware), there I am at my first prompt (bash of course).  So I try 
to use it, and find it's so primitive that DOS/command.com is luxurious 
by comparison.  Even DOS gives you command recall by default.  After a 
few hours of retyping commands over and over again, I gave up in disgust 
and went back to DOS/Windows for 10 more years :-(
</>


> Personally, I think that vendors should not screw too much with the
> default setup of a program system-wide; not even mentioning the large
> blobs of configuration that newbie's don't have a chance to debug in
> case something fails.
>
> That's being said, I'm one of the guys who help with the zsh confi-
> guration of the grml Linux live distribution, that you can find at:
>
>      http://grml.org/zsh/

And what a fine thing the zsh configurator is, it at least gets you off 
the ground.
> It's a massive setup and I think for the use of a live installation,
> that's fine. I still stand firm of the issue of handing large setups to
> absolute beginners, for the reason I gave above.
>
But couldn't we at least have history recall by default?  It is very 
nice that if no .zshrc is found the configurator starts by default, by 
why not offer an option in the main menu:

(z)   Configure zsh with some basic, safe settings that almost everyone 
wants. If you're unsure what to to, just try this. Remember,  you can 
always run " (some easy way of rerunning zsh-newuser-install)" again to 
change these settings, so don't worry, you aren't going to break anything.

Re: Out of the box

[Eric Cook]

On 01/02/2015 02:51 PM, Ray Andrews wrote:
>
> (z)   Configure zsh with some basic, safe settings that almost
> everyone wants. If you're unsure what to to, just try this. Remember, 
> you can always run " (some easy way of rerunning zsh-newuser-install)"
> again to change these settings, so don't worry, you aren't going to
> break anything.
>
>
There was a discussion[1] on improving zsh-newuser-install last year
that you were a part of. They seemed opened to the idea, but no one with
enough interest stepped up to improve it.

[1] http://www.zsh.org/mla/users/2014/msg00492.html

Re: Out of the box

[Ray Andrews]

On 01/02/2015 12:49 PM, Eric Cook wrote:
> On 01/02/2015 02:51 PM, Ray Andrews wrote:
>> (z)   Configure zsh with some basic, safe settings that almost
>> everyone wants. If you're unsure what to to, just try this. Remember,
>> you can always run " (some easy way of rerunning zsh-newuser-install)"
>> again to change these settings, so don't worry, you aren't going to
>> break anything.
>>
>>
> There was a discussion[1] on improving zsh-newuser-install last year
> that you were a part of. They seemed opened to the idea, but no one with
> enough interest stepped up to improve it.
>
> [1] http://www.zsh.org/mla/users/2014/msg00492.html
Well, then, and now (still) I'm not competent to change it, but I'd be 
happy to help with text if anyone was willing to give it a go.