I don't know about the other Unixes On *every* install of FreeBSD or Linux I do, the first thing I do is set bash as my standard shell. I recommend it as the shell for getting around quickly on your system. Among many others, the simple features of autocompleting directories and files with the tab key, and up or down arrow for command history transformed my whole concept of the shell. (having been brought up with DOS
I've never had a problem of any sort with using the bash shell for login. However, you don't have to commit to a shell to use it. If you want to be sure and not mess up the root profile, just install bash, and only run it when you want after logging in with sh, or csh, or whatever the default shell is. Then, if any trouble comes up, you just drop out (CTRL-D is common) and you will be back in the original shell.
Also, in FreeBSD, and some other Unixes, the standard 'ls' doesn't support color listing of directories, so I recommend installing 'colorls' or 'gnuls'. You can then alias ls="colorls -aFG", for example, which makes for a very readable shell. [sig][/sig]