Difference between Shell's

[raji10k]

HI Frndz,


I halted with a doubt I used to know that there are different types of shell's in RHEL
What's the difference between the shell's and use of the shell's?

Please any one help me about this..........

Thanking You

[reed9]

Different shells can have different capabilities, different syntax, different commands. Think of it like, what's the difference between Firefox and Opera? They're both web browsers, but obviously, they can do things quite differently.

However, many of the different shells are related, and so share many commonalities.

BASH is the most common linux shell.
Bash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zsh is very popular as well, and has some more advanced options.
Z shell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Rubberman]

Historical imperative and porting. A lot of software for Unix/Linux systems are shell scripts of one sort or another. Although the default shell for Linux is bash, a derivative of the standard Unix shell (sh) with many features from the Korn shell (ksh), it also supports the C shell (csh), Korn shell, standard shell, and others. I used to prefer the C shell because of all my work on Solaris and other Unix systems, but mostly I use bash these days.

So, scripts that have been ported from Unix systems that use either sh, ksh, or csh (the most common shells on Unix) can be run often without modification on Linux as well.

[qweeak]

I came across a link which provide answer for this thread.Since i cannot post any link here is the comparison

1. sh csh ksh bash tcsh zsh rc es
2. Job control N Y Y Y Y Y N N
3. Aliases N Y Y Y Y Y N N
4. Shell functions Y(1) N Y Y N Y Y Y
5. "Sensible" Input/Output redirection Y N Y Y N Y Y Y
6. Directory stack N Y Y Y Y Y F F
7. Command history N Y Y Y Y Y L L
8. Command line editing N N Y Y Y Y L L
9. Vi Command line editing N N Y Y Y(3) Y L L
10. Emacs Command line editing N N Y Y Y Y L L
11. Rebindable Command line editing N N N Y Y Y L L
12. User name look up N Y Y Y Y Y L L
13. Login/Logout watching N N N N Y Y F F
14. Filename completion N Y(1) Y Y Y Y L L
15. Username completion N Y(2) Y Y Y Y L L
16. Hostname completion N Y(2) Y Y Y Y L L
17. History completion N N N Y Y Y L L
18. Fully programmable Completion N N N N Y Y N N
19. Mh Mailbox completion N N N N(4) N(6) N(6) N N
20. Co Processes N N Y N N Y N N
21. Builtin artithmetic evaluation N Y Y Y Y Y N N
22. Can follow symbolic links invisibly N N Y Y Y Y N N
23. Periodic command execution N N N N Y Y N N
24. Custom Prompt (easily) N N Y Y Y Y Y Y
25. Sun Keyboard Hack N N N N N Y N N
26. Spelling Correction N N N N Y Y N N
27. Process Substitution N N N Y(2) N Y Y Y
28. Underlying Syntax sh csh sh sh csh sh rc rc
29. Freely Available N N N(5) Y Y Y Y Y
30. Checks Mailbox N Y Y Y Y Y F F
31. Tty Sanity Checking N N N N Y Y N N
32. Can cope with large argument lists Y N Y Y Y Y Y Y
33. Has non-interactive startup file N Y Y(7) Y(7) Y Y N N
34. Has non-login startup file N Y Y(7) Y Y Y N N
35. Can avoid user startup files N Y N Y N Y Y Y
36. Can specify startup file N N Y Y N N N N
37. Low level command redefinition N N N N N N N Y
38. Has anonymous functions N N N N N N Y Y
39. List Variables N Y Y N Y Y Y Y
40. Full signal trap handling Y N Y Y N Y Y Y
41. File no clobber ability N Y Y Y Y Y N F
42. Local variables N N Y Y N Y Y Y
43. Lexically scoped variables N N N N N N N Y
44. Exceptions N N N N N N N Y

Key to the table above.

Y Feature can be done using this shell.

N Feature is not present in the shell.

F Feature can only be done by using the shells function
mechanism.

L The readline library must be linked into the shell to enable
this Feature.