Understanding the Linux Shell

Before icons and windows took over computer screens, you typed commands to run most computers. On UNIX systems, from which Linux was derived, the program used to interpret and manage commands was referred to as the shell .

The shell provides a way to run programs, work with the file system, compile computer code, and manage the computer. Although the shell is less intuitive than common GUIs, most Linux experts consider the shell to be much more powerful than GUIs. Because shells have been around for so long, many advanced features have been built into them. Many old-school Linux administrators and programmers primarily use a GUI as a way to open lots of shells.

The Linux shell illustrated in this chapter is called the bash shell, which stands for Bourne Again SHell. The name is derived from the fact that bash is compatible with the first UNIX shell: the Bourne shell (represented by the sh command). Other popular shells include the C Shell ( csh ), which is popular among BSD UNIX users, and the Korn Shell ( ksh ), which is popular among UNIX System V users. Linux also has a tcsh shell (a C shell look-alike) and an ash shell (another Bourne shell look-alike).

Note 

While you can invoke the Bourne shell with /bin/sh , the command actually runs the bash shell in sh compatibility mode. Running /bin/sh produces a shell that behaves more like sh than bash, but you will probably be able to use bash scripting concepts that the real Bourne shell wouldn't recognize.

Although most Linux users have a preference for one shell or another, when you know how to use one shell, you can quickly learn any of the others by occasionally referring to the shell's man page (for example, type man bash ). In Linux, the bash shell is roughly compatible with the sh shell.