K I S S This is the generic README file for Kiss: Karel's Interactive Simple Shell (or Incredibly Stupid Shell, if you like). I wrote Kiss as a replacement of David I. Bell's "sash" (Stand-Alone Shell), which I used in my Search-And-Rescue package to create bootable rescue disks. I found that Sash lacked features which I absolutely needed: piping, command substitution and such. So here's Kiss. Kiss is basically a simple shell interpreter, like Bash or Tcsh, except that it lacks a good deal of the sophistication of a good shell. E.g. you'll find that Kiss sometimes doesn't parse its input the way you want it, or that programs aren't started correctly. So beware. However, most times Kiss will do what you intend it to do. What Kiss does have over Bash or Tcsh, is a good deal of built-in programs. E.g. "ls" or "mount" are built-ins, which means that Kiss is ideal as a shell interpreter on rescue disks. Just create a bootable disk, put Kiss on it as your login shell interpreter, and you're all set. No need to put "ls", "cat", "more" or other programs on the disk. Which means that you can put other important files on the rescue diskette. For those who are interested in the workings of Kiss, read the files technotes.txt and so on. For the usage of Kiss, read userguide.txt. The text files are contained int the subdirectory doc/. The binary versions of Kiss in this archive are: src/bkiss, src/gkiss and src/rkiss. The first is a `bare' version, lacking line editing (but yielding a smaller executable). The second has getline support, offering command line editing. The last one was linked with GNU's Readline support: it has line editing and filename completion like, e.g., bash, but is bigger. I am always interested in feedback! Keep in mind that Kiss is meant as a rescue disk shell interpreter, so don't expect too much functionality. Though if you think that relevant programs for a rescue disk should be in Kiss, write me. "Kiss is distributed without charge. As with everything that's free, there's no warranty. If you like Kiss, tell your friends about it. If you _really_ like Kiss, send me a postcard from a far-away place. If you don't like it, tough." Oh, one more thing. I am distributing Kiss under the GPL `copyleft' conditions. See the file COPYING. However, if you have changes / improvements / bug fixes, don't hack the sources to re-distribute your version. Rather mail your submissions to me. I'd like to have the latest version of Kiss too! Karel Kubat e-mail: karel@icce.rug.nl Westerhaven 16 9718 AW Groningen The Netherlands As of Sep. 1997 Kiss is not longer maintained by Karel Kubat. Please do not send changes / improvements / bug fixes to him, but send them to the new maintainer. Thanks! The new maintainer is: Sven Van Den Steene e-mail: kiss@skynet.be kiss@skynet.be Gebr. de Smet straat 47 9000 Gent Belgium