What shell does ‘exec’ actually use and how can I change it?

asked 2015-08-08 19:51:31 +0000

k.stm
3 ●1 ●1 ●3

updated 2015-08-08 20:00:45 +0000

This might be a non-i3-question after all.

In the i3 docs, it says that

“What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications? The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a shell,”

but what shell are the commands actually passed to? My user’s shell is set to /bin/zsh, but apparently exec invokes command via /bin/sh. How can I change that?

I use debian testing/unstable, should that matter.

Background: I use an i3 key binding to invoke urxvtcd -e emacs -nw, but evaluating (getenv "PATH") from within emacs gives me then the wrong environment (whereas (getenv "SHELL") gives me /bin/zsh).