Chapter 8. Working with the Shell

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Introducing the Shell

• Choosing a Shell for FreeBSD

• Changing Your Shell

• Getting Help in the Shell

• Basic Shell File Manipulation

• Text-Related Commands

• Pipes and Input/Output Redirection

• Command Completion and History Editing

Part I, "Introduction to FreeBSD," walked you through the installation and setup of FreeBSD, and Part II, "FreeBSD on the Desktop," covered the graphical user environments (GNOME, KDE, and other window managers) that help make FreeBSD run like the desktop operating systems available in the consumer market. Although a user can do great things within the graphical world of X11, so far this book has given only minimal attention to the more austere and direct method for unlocking the true power of UNIX: the shell.

This chapter introduces several shells available for FreeBSD, gives a feature comparison of the various shells, and then shows how to work with the shell, harnessing the power of input/output redirection and pipes to work with your data in a more direct and flexible manner than is possible any other way.