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What Is Shell

A shell is a program that provides an interface between the user and the operating system kernel. It accepts commands from the user in human-readable form and converts them to a form that the kernel can understand. There are two main types of shells: command line shells, which are accessed through a terminal program and allow typing commands directly, and graphical shells, which have a GUI interface and allow manipulating programs through windows and icons rather than text commands. Common Linux shells include BASH, the most widely used shell, CSH with syntax like C, and KSH which influenced the POSIX shell standard.

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Praveen Patel
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81 views

What Is Shell

A shell is a program that provides an interface between the user and the operating system kernel. It accepts commands from the user in human-readable form and converts them to a form that the kernel can understand. There are two main types of shells: command line shells, which are accessed through a terminal program and allow typing commands directly, and graphical shells, which have a GUI interface and allow manipulating programs through windows and icons rather than text commands. Common Linux shells include BASH, the most widely used shell, CSH with syntax like C, and KSH which influenced the POSIX shell standard.

Uploaded by

Praveen Patel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is Shell

A shell is special user program which provide an interface to


user to use operating system services. Shell accept human
readable commands from user and convert them into something
which kernel can understand. It is a command language
interpreter that execute commands read from input devices
such as keyboards or from files. The shell gets started when the
user logs in or start the terminal.

Linux Shell
Shell is broadly classified into two categories –
 Command Line Shell
 Graphical shell
Command Line Shell
Shell can be accessed by user using a command line interface.
A special program called Terminal in linux/macOS or
Command Prompt in Windows OS is provided to type in the
human readable commands such as “cat”, “ls” etc. and then it is
being execute. The result is then displayed on the terminal to
the user. A terminal in Ubuntu 16.4 system looks like this –
linux command line
In above screenshot “ls” command with “-l” option is executed.
It will list all the files in current working directory in long
listing format.
Working with command line shell is bit difficult for the
beginners because it’s hard to memorize so many commands. It
is very powerful, it allows user to store commands in a file and
execute them together. This way any repetitive task can be
easily automated. These files are usually called batch files in
Windows and Shell Scripts in Linux/macOS systems.
Graphical Shells
Graphical shells provide means for manipulating programs
based on graphical user interface (GUI), by allowing for
operations such as opening, closing, moving and resizing
windows, as well as switching focus between windows.
Window OS or Ubuntu OS can be considered as good example
which provide GUI to user for interacting with program. User
do not need to type in command for every actions.A typical
GUI in Ubuntu system –

GUI  Shell
There are several shells are available for Linux systems like –
 BASH (Bourne Again SHell)  – It is most widely used shell
in Linux systems. It is used as default login shell in Linux
systems and in macOS. It can also be installed on Windows
OS.
 CSH (C SHell) – The C shell’s syntax and usage are very
similar to the C programming language.
 KSH (Korn SHell) – The Korn Shell also was the base for
the POSIX Shell standard specifications etc.

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