Chapter Summary

The shell is the GNU/Linux command interpreter. It scans the command line for proper syntax, picking out the command name and any arguments. The first argument is referred to as argument one, the second as argument two, and so on. The name of the command itself is sometimes referred to as argument zero. Many programs use options to modify the effects of a command. Most GNU/Linux utilities identify an option by its leading one or two hyphens.

When you give it a command, the shell tries to find an executable program with the same name as the command. When it does, the shell executes the program. When it does not, the shell tells you that it cannot find or execute the program. If the command is expressed as a simple filename, the ...

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