Chapter 3. Working with Your Shell

When you access a Unix system, the first thing you see is the prompt, called the shell prompt, which is where you interact with Unix. The shell determines how easily you can enter and reenter commands and how you can control your environment. What’s cool about Unix is that you’re not stuck with one shell—that is, on most systems you can choose to use shells that have different features and capabilities.

In this chapter, we’ll look at your shell, show you how to change your shell, and get you started using a few of the more common shells.