What is a Shell?
The shell is an interactive command interpreter environment within which commands may be typed at a prompt or entered into a file in the form of a script and executed. The origins of the shell can be traced back to the early days of the UNIX operating. In fact, in the early days of Linux before the introduction of graphical desktops the shell was the only way for a user to interact with the operating system.
A variety of shell environments have been developed over the years. The first widely used shell was the Bourne shell, written by Stephen Bourne at Bell Labs.
Yet another early creation was the C shell which shared some syntax similarities with the C Programming Language and introduced usability enhancements such as command-line editing and history.
The Korn shell (developed by David Korn at Bell Labs) is based on features provided by both the Bourne shell and the C shell.
The default shell on RHEL 6 is the Bash shell (shorthand for Bourne again shell). This shell, which began life as an open source version of the Bourne shell, was developed for the GNU Project by Brian Fox and is based on features provided by both the Bourne Shell and the C Shell.
Gaining Access to the Shell
From within the GNOME desktop environment, the shell prompt may be accessed from a Terminal window either by selecting the Applications -> System Tools -> Terminal menu option or right clicking on the desktop and selecting Open in Terminal from the resulting menu. When remotely logging into an RHEL server, for example using SSH, the user is also presented with a shell prompt. When booting a server based system in which a desktop environment has not been installed, the shell is entered immediately after the user completes the login procedure at the console terminal or remote login session.
different type of shells in linux
Bourne Shell
The original Bourne shell is named after its developer at Bell Labs, Steve Bourne. It was the first shell used for the Unix operating system, and it has been largely surpassed in functionality by many of the more recent shells. However, all Unix and many Linux versions allow users to switch to the original Bourne Shell, known simply as "sh," if they choose to forgo features such as file name completion and command histories that later shells have added.
C Shell
The C shell, as its name might imply, was designed to allow users to write shell script programs using a syntax very similar to that of the C programming language. It is known as "csh."
TC Shell
TC shell is an expansion upon the C shell. It has all the same features, but adds the ability to use keystrokes from the Emacs word processor program to edit text on the command line. For example, users can press Esc-D to delete the rest of the highlighted word. It is also known as "tcsh."
Korn Shell
Korn Shell was also written by a developer at Bell Labs, David Korn. It attempts to merge the features of the C shell, TC shell and Bourne shell under one package. It also includes the ability for developers to create new shell commands as the need arises.
It is known as "ksh."
Bourne-Again Shell
The Bourne-Again shell is an updated version of the original Bourne shell that was created by the Free Software Foundation for its open source GNU project. For this reason, it is a widely used shell in the open source community.
Its syntax is similar to that used by the Bourne shell, however it incorporates some of the more advanced features found in the C, TC and Korn shells.
Among the added features that Bourne lacked are the ability to complete file names by pressing the TAB key, the ability to remember a history of recent commands and the ability to run multiple programs in the background at once.
The shell is an interactive command interpreter environment within which commands may be typed at a prompt or entered into a file in the form of a script and executed. The origins of the shell can be traced back to the early days of the UNIX operating. In fact, in the early days of Linux before the introduction of graphical desktops the shell was the only way for a user to interact with the operating system.
A variety of shell environments have been developed over the years. The first widely used shell was the Bourne shell, written by Stephen Bourne at Bell Labs.
Yet another early creation was the C shell which shared some syntax similarities with the C Programming Language and introduced usability enhancements such as command-line editing and history.
The Korn shell (developed by David Korn at Bell Labs) is based on features provided by both the Bourne shell and the C shell.
The default shell on RHEL 6 is the Bash shell (shorthand for Bourne again shell). This shell, which began life as an open source version of the Bourne shell, was developed for the GNU Project by Brian Fox and is based on features provided by both the Bourne Shell and the C Shell.
Gaining Access to the Shell
From within the GNOME desktop environment, the shell prompt may be accessed from a Terminal window either by selecting the Applications -> System Tools -> Terminal menu option or right clicking on the desktop and selecting Open in Terminal from the resulting menu. When remotely logging into an RHEL server, for example using SSH, the user is also presented with a shell prompt. When booting a server based system in which a desktop environment has not been installed, the shell is entered immediately after the user completes the login procedure at the console terminal or remote login session.
different type of shells in linux
Bourne Shell
The original Bourne shell is named after its developer at Bell Labs, Steve Bourne. It was the first shell used for the Unix operating system, and it has been largely surpassed in functionality by many of the more recent shells. However, all Unix and many Linux versions allow users to switch to the original Bourne Shell, known simply as "sh," if they choose to forgo features such as file name completion and command histories that later shells have added.
C Shell
The C shell, as its name might imply, was designed to allow users to write shell script programs using a syntax very similar to that of the C programming language. It is known as "csh."
TC Shell
TC shell is an expansion upon the C shell. It has all the same features, but adds the ability to use keystrokes from the Emacs word processor program to edit text on the command line. For example, users can press Esc-D to delete the rest of the highlighted word. It is also known as "tcsh."
Korn Shell
Korn Shell was also written by a developer at Bell Labs, David Korn. It attempts to merge the features of the C shell, TC shell and Bourne shell under one package. It also includes the ability for developers to create new shell commands as the need arises.
It is known as "ksh."
Bourne-Again Shell
The Bourne-Again shell is an updated version of the original Bourne shell that was created by the Free Software Foundation for its open source GNU project. For this reason, it is a widely used shell in the open source community.
Its syntax is similar to that used by the Bourne shell, however it incorporates some of the more advanced features found in the C, TC and Korn shells.
Among the added features that Bourne lacked are the ability to complete file names by pressing the TAB key, the ability to remember a history of recent commands and the ability to run multiple programs in the background at once.
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