Chapter 6. The Bash Shell

The shell is a program that acts as a buffer between you and the operating system. In its role as a command interpreter, it should (for the most part) act invisibly. There are three main uses for the shell: interactive use; customizing your Linux session by defining variables and startup files; and programming, by writing and executing shell scripts.

The original Bourne shell became the standard shell for writing shell scripts. The Bourne shell is still found in /bin/sh on Linux systems but is now usually a symbolic link to Bash. Because the Berkeley C shell (csh and later tcsh) offered better features for interactive use, such as command history and job control, for a long time the standard practice was to use the Bourne shell for programming and the C shell for daily use. David Korn at Bell Labs enhanced the Bourne shell by adding csh-like features; his shell is known as the Korn shell (ksh).