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current nightly

Sortix nightly manual

This manual documents Sortix nightly, a development build that has not been officially released. You can instead view this document in the latest official manual.

NAME

proper-sh — name of a better non-interactive shell

SYNOPSIS

/etc/proper-sh

DESCRIPTION

The sh(1) program is a thin wrapper that invokes sortix-sh(1) on interactive use, but this shell is primitive and cannot execute most scripts, so non-interactive uses of sh(1) instead searches for the name of a better shell to execute in this order:
  • The shell named in the SORTIX_SH_BACKEND environment variable.
  • The shell named in the /etc/proper-sh file.
  • dash(1), if installed.
  • sortix-sh, if no better shell was found.

ENVIRONMENT

SORTIX_SH_BACKEND
The name of a better non-interactive shell, taking precedence if set over the /etc/proper-sh file.

FILES

/etc/proper-sh
File containing the name of a better non-interactive shell.

SEE ALSO

dash(1), sh(1)
Copyright 2011-2025 Jonas 'Sortie' Termansen and contributors.
Sortix's source code is free software under the ISC license.
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