Unix / Linux - What is Shells?

A shell is a program that provides an interface between a user and an operating

system (OS) kernel.
It gathers input from user and executes programs based on that
input. When a program finish executing, it displays that
program's output.
There are different types of a shell. Each types of shell has its
own set of recognized commands and functions.

Shell Types:
In UNIX there are two major types of shells:

1. The Bourne shell. If you are using a Bourne-type shell, the

default prompt is the $ character.
2. The C shell. If you are using a C-type shell, the default
prompt is the % character.

There are again various subcategories for Bourne Shell which are
listed as follows:

 Bourne shell ( sh)

 Korn shell ( ksh)
 Bourne Again shell ( bash)
 POSIX shell ( sh)

The different C-type shells follow:

 C shell ( csh)
 TENEX/TOPS C shell ( tcsh)

Shell Prompt:
The prompt, $, which is called command prompt, is issued by the
shell. While the prompt is displayed, you can type a command.

The shell reads your input after you press Enter. It determines
the command you want executed by looking at the first word of
your input. A word is an unbroken set of characters. Spaces and
tabs separate words.

Following is a simple example of date command which displays

current date and time:

$date
Thu Jun 25 08:30:19 MST 2009

Basic unix commands:

1. who : The ‘$ who’ command displays all the users who have logged into the
system currently. As shown above, on my system I am the only user currently
logged in.The thing tty2 is terminal line the user is using and the next line gives the
current date and time
$ who
Output: harssh tty2 2017-07-18 09:32 (:0)
2. pwd : The ‘$pwd’ command stands for ‘print working directory’ and as the name
says,it displays the directory in which we are currently (directory is same as folder
for Windows OS users).
In the output, we are harssh directory(folder for Windows OS that are moving to
Linux),which is present inside the home directory.
$ pwd
Output: /home/harssh
3. mkdir : The ‘$ mkdir’ stands for ‘make directory’ and it creates a new
directory.We have used ‘$ cd’ (which is discussed below) to get into the newly
created directory and again on giving ‘$ pwd’ command,we are displayed with the
new ‘newfolder’ directory.
$ mkdir newfolder
$ cd newfolder
$ pwd
Output: /home/harssh/newfolder
4. rmdir : The ‘$ rmdir’ command deletes any directory we want to delete and you
can remember it by its names ‘rmdir’ which stands for ‘remove directory’.
$ rmdir newfolder
5. cd : The ‘$ cd’ command stands for ‘change directory’ and it changes your
current directory to the ‘newfolder’ directory.You can understand this a double-
clicking a folder and then you do some stuff in that folder.
$ cd newfolder (assuming that there is a directory named
'newfolder' on your system)
6. ls : The ‘ls’ command simply displays the contents of a directory.
$ ls
Output: Desktop Documents Downloads Music Pictures Public Scratch
Templates Videos
7. touch : The ‘$ touch’ command creates a file(not directory) and you can simple
add an extension such as .txt after it to make it a Text File.
$ touch example
$ ls
Output: Desktop Documents Downloads Music Pictures Public Scratch
Templates Videos example
Note: It is important to note that according to the Unix File structure, Unix treats
all the stuff it has as a ‘file’, even the directories(folders) are also treated as a
file.You will get to know more about this as you will further use Linux/Unix based

OS
8. cp : This ‘$ cp ‘ command stands for ‘copy’ and it simply copy/paste the file
wherever you want to.In the above example, we are copying a file ‘file.txt’ from the
directory harssh to a new directory new.
$ cp /home/harssh/file.txt /home/harssh/new/
9. mv : The ‘$ mv’ command stands for ‘move’ and it simply move a file from a
directory to another directory.In the above example a file named ‘file.txt’ is being
moved into a new directory ‘new’
$ mv /home/harssh/file.txt /home/harssh/new
10. rm : The ‘$ rm ‘ command for remove and the ‘-r’ simply recursively deletes

file. Try ‘$ rm filename.txt’ at your terminal

$ rm file.txt
11. chmod : The ‘$ chmod’ command stands for change mode command.As there
are many modes in Unix that can be used to manipulate files in the Unix
environment.Basically there are 3 modes that we can use with the ‘chmod’
command
1. +w (stands for write and it changes file permissions to write)
2. +r (stands for read and it changes file permissions to read)
3. +x (generally it is used to make a file executable)
$ chmod +w file.txt
$ chmod +r file.txt
$ chmod +x file.txt
12. cal : The ‘$ cal’ means calendar and it simply display calendar on to your screen.
$ cal
Output : July 2017
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31
13. file : The ‘$ file’ command displays the type of file.As I mentioned earlier Linux
treats everything as a file so on executing the command file on a
directory(Downloads) it displays directory as the output
$ ls
Output: Desktop Documents Downloads Music Pictures Public Scratch
Templates Videos
$ file Downloads
Output: Downloads: directory
14. sort : As the name suggests the ‘$ sort’ sorts the contents of the file according to
the ASCII rules.
$ sort file
15. grep : grep is an acronym for ‘globally search a regular expression and print
it’.The ‘$ grep’ command searches the specified input fully(globally) for a match
with the supplied pattern and displays it.
In the example, this would search for the word ‘picture’ in the file newsfile and if
found,the lines containing it would be displayed on the screen.
$ grep picture newsfile
16. man : The ‘$ man’ command stands for ‘manual’ and it can display the in-built
manual for most of the commands that we ever need.In the above example, we can
read about the ‘$ pwd’ command.
$ man pwd
17. lpr : The ‘$ lpr’ command send a file to the printer for printing.
$ lpr new.txt
18. passwd : The ‘$ passwd’ command simply changes the password of the user.In
above case ‘harssh’ is the user.
$ passwd
Output: Changing password for harssh.
(current) UNIX password:
19. clear : The ‘$ clear’ command is used to clean up the terminal so that you can

type with more accuracy

$ clear
20. history : The ‘$ history’ command is used to get list of previous commands may
be obtained by executing the following command. you can also use parameters
like !n to re-execute the nth command, !! to executes the most recent command,
and !cp this will execute the most recent command that starts with cp.
$ history
At last, I want to say that these are the most basic and essential commands that are
used in the Linux operating system. You will need them even if you get to advance
the Unix. If you want to master them just keep on practicing them.
Also, it is not possible to cover all the Unix commands because they are so many in
number. You can find more, just google it and you will find most of them. Also if
you want to master Unix operating system, Learn Unix Shell Scripting/Bash
Scripting. Trust me there are many awesome tutorials on the internet for them.