Set default shell, avoid dpkg messages to stderr

.devcontainer/Dockerfile

@@ -11,8 +11,13 @@ COPY .devcontainer/settings.vscode.json /root/.vscode-remote/data/Machine/settin
 # Install pylint
 RUN pip install pylint
 
-# Install git, process tools
-RUN apt-get update && apt-get -y install git procps
+# Configure apt
+ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+RUN apt-get update \
+    && apt-get -y install --no-install-recommends apt-utils 2>&1
+
+# Install git, process tools, lsb-release (common in install instructions for CLIs)
+RUN apt-get -y install git procps lsb-release
 
 # Install any missing dependencies for enhanced language service
 RUN apt-get install -y libicu[0-9][0-9]
@@ -28,3 +33,7 @@ RUN if [ -f "requirements.txt" ]; then pip install -r requirements.txt && rm req
 RUN apt-get autoremove -y \
     && apt-get clean -y \
     && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
+ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=dialog
+
+# Set the default shell to bash rather than sh
+ENV SHELL /bin/bash