Given an installation of Ubuntu Server (or pretty much any other Linux variant that requires you to use a terminal), changing a user’s shell is thankfully pretty easy.
I generally like to use bash as my shell of choice, as it gives me the most user friendly and verbose interface to work in, meaning that I often find myself having to switch a newly installed system’s default out for bash for my freshly added user account.
And given that this post is more a reference for me than anything else, these are a useful set of steps to follow in order to change to Bash:
1. Check the user’s current shell by reading the entry in the /etc/passwd user information file.
grep craig /etc/passwd
Grep will return something that looks like craig:x:1006:1006::/home/craig:/bin/sh. That particular line tells us that the system is currently using sh as my shell.
2. Grab a list of available shells by reading the common /etc/shells file.
cat /etc/shells
3. Change the shell using the chsh command. If you are logged into your account, then chsh will first prompt you for your password, followed by a prompt for the new shell. Note, you have to enter the full path, as listed in /etc/shells.
Oh, you can also quicken the process by calling chsh with parameters, as indicated by the man page:
chsh -s /bin/bash craig
Done!