VSCode is running sh in terminal

Question

I am trying to set my steamdeck for doing some coding. I installed VS Code from Discover store but for some reason I cannot set it to run bash in terminal. it only runs sh. The main problem is that I cannot use pacman, docker or distrobox that I installed through Konsole.

Adding this

"terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux": "bash" 

to the settings.json it creates terminal that is labeled bash but echo $SHELL gives me /bin/sh

I also tried this

"terminal.integrated.shell.linux": "bash"

but it seems that VS code on arch does not recognize this option.

If I add just this VS Code is running terminal labeled sh and gives same result for echo $SHELL.

Running /bin/bash also does not help(gives same result for echo $SHELL) but no errors.

Answer 1

$SHELL environment variable only indicates the default shell that is set for the active user.

So echo $SHELL does not necessarily reflect the shell running in your current terminal session. Which means you can start other shell and that will not update $SHELL environment variable, which reflects only default shell for your user. It could be modified explicitly if you want to do so.

Regardless on that, to check what is your current active shell in terminal session, type:

echo $0

or eventually

ps -p $$

You also have to have right shells installed and supported which you can check with:

cat /etc/shells

Regarding vscode, it should be enough to set "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux": "bash" in the settings.json, but make sure you exit and start the integrated terminal again after the change is applied.