Linux Installation

Learning UNIX/Linux 2

Learning About UNIX-GNU/Linux

Module 2: Getting Started

q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q

About shells Files and Directories Examples of Absolute Paths Present Working Directory Making and Deleting Directories Relative Paths Special Dot Files and Directories Paths to Home Directories Specifying Multiple Files Specifying Files with Wildcards Looking at Files Finding Documentation for Programs Plumbing More About Command Options Exercise 1 Exercise 2 Exercise 3

About Shells

q

The are many shells. Some common ones, in historical order, are: r sh: the original Bourne shell. s Written by Steve Bourne at AT&T Bell Labs. s Provides a shell programming language. r csh: the "C shell." s Written by Bill Joy et al. at the University of California, Berkeley. s Added some features to improve the user interface. s Developed another shell programming language, similar to C. s Many bugs in that programming language. r tcsh: Tenex C shell. s Tenex was an operating system championed by Digital Equipment Corporation. s C shell like syntax with many bug fixes and Tenex-like extensions. r ksh: the "Korn shell." s Written by David Korn at AT&T Bell Labs. s An extension of the Bourne shell. s Added some of the improved user-interface of the C shell. s Proprietary. r bash: Bourne again shell. s Developed as Open Source by GNU.

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/LearnLinux/Module2.html (1 of 15) [6/21/02 8:39:25 AM]

Learning UNIX/Linux 2

q q q q q q q

All the features of sh and ksh plus more. On many systems the file /etc/shells lists the available shells. bash and tcsh are the most popular shells for user-interaction. sh-ksh-bash syntax is the most popular for programming. The program chsh allows you to change your login shell. In this module, most examples will work with any of the well-known shells. In Module 3 we will be discussing using sh-ksh and especially bash. For further information see...