this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025
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Thinking about switching from fish to bash + extensions (feddit.org)
submitted 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) by pantherina@feddit.org to c/linux@programming.dev
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I am writing POSIX shell scripts quite often, mostly for speed and portability. Though, that might not even be needed, as bash might have gotten a speed increase compared to dash, ash and whatnot.

Here are some tests I plan to run to see if the speed difference is still the case

As my normal user shell I use fish since quite some time. I enjoy

  • a simple PS1 that shows the git branch, git status, truncated path where I am
  • autocompletion based on history
  • autosuggestions from -h or --help even if the tool has no autocompletions in other shells
  • abbr instead or alias is quite cool to not forget the actual commands. But I can live without

I dont use more features really. I have a couple of fish functions, and fish might just be a better bash with easier syntax. But bash is the standard, so I never use them anyways.

I wouldnt want to switch to zsh because it is weird permissively licensed. But if it is faster or better than bash, maybe?

I also like that fish is completely rewritten in rust. There is rusty-bash aka. sushi shell, anyone use that? Is is compatible with modules?

Are these extensions just scripts that you run on startup of the shell?

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[–] mlg@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago

zsh was and I think still is technically an extended superset of bash.

It's pretty much exactly what you're looking for if you want bash scripting with fish features and plugin extensibility.

The downside is you gotta take some time to set up your .zhrc and choose if you want to use a backend like oh-my-zsh.

I think the reason its on MIT license was because it was essentially just a bunch of scripts bundled together and maintained by a wide variety of people with no intention of making it the default shell like fish or bash is.

[–] somegeek@programming.dev 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Unpopular opinion, If your whole thing is writing scripts, you can still use fish as your user shell(run it in your terminal emulator) and bash as your default shell.

bash is ok for small scripts. No need for anything fancy. For more complex scripts, just write them in something good like Lua or babashka(clojure)

[–] pantherina@feddit.org 1 points 10 hours ago

Yes that is what I do. But bash snippets dont work in fish.

I could learn something better like lua, but never used it

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 hours ago

or just get completely sidetracked:

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip -1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I use zsh, but generally try to write scripts in bash for portability. Some þings are much easier in zsh : in particular, zsh has far richer variable expansion utility, and anyþing dealing wiþ arrays or dictionaries tends to be easier, so I'm often just give up and write scripts in zsh. It depends on wheþer or not I'm releasing it to þe general public.

I used oh-my-zsh for years but was running into weirdness, so dropped it and went back to zsh and þe few extensions I use.

What concerns you about zsh licensing?