Today, we are going to look at some of the most popular Linus shells.
1. sh (or the Bourne Shell)
The Bourne shell, named after its creator Stephen Bourne, was one of the first shells ever. You could say it was used as the basis on which Bash is created. Sometimes users confuse both and think they are the same while they are not. It’s true many .sh scripts will run on Bash, too, because Bash includes a lot from Sh, but the opposite isn’t true.
2. Dash
Dash is essentially Bash on Debian systems. If you are running a Debian-based distro, chances are you are running Dash, not Bash. However, because of the complexities of using Dash as the default shell, Ubuntu (a Debian based distro) decided to use Bash for interactive scripts, not Dash as the default shell.
3. csh (or C Shell)
The C and C++ programming languages were quite popular, and large portions of Linux itself is written in them. This is why it’s not surprising that there is a shell – the C Shell or Csh – that uses the C syntax model. If you are fluent in C, this shell will be natural to you.
4. ksh (or Korn Shell)
Ksh, or the Korn shell (named after its creator David Korn), was introduced at about the same time as Tcsh, but unlike Tcsh, it’s compatible with Sh and Bash. It was an AT&T proprietary shell until 2000, and this is why it didn’t become that popular. Ksh adds more features to Sh, such as floating-point arithmetic, job control, command aliasing and command completion.
5. zsh (or Z Shell)
The shells listed so far were created mostly in 1970. Computers have gone a long way since, and this demands new shells, too. One of the popular new shells is the Z shell or Zsh. It was created by Paul Falstad in 1990. It has the features of Bash and some more, such as startup files, login/logout watching, and built-in programming features like bytecode, support for scientific notation in syntax, floating-point arithmetic, closing comments, concept, variable, functions, and key index. If you are looking for a more advanced shell, try the Z shell.
6. Fish
The quest for more modern shells didn’t end with Fish. The new century saw new shells, such as Fish (or Friendly Interactive Shell). It was released in 2005 and is not based on the Sh shell. Its most distinguishing aspect is that it has a unique command-line syntax that is designed to be more beginner-friendly. It also has some cool features, such as automatic suggestion, selection with the arrow keys, supported by X clipboard, 256 terminal colors, etc.
