Understanding shells and options
Depending on the particular UNIX system you're using, you may have several different shells available to you. Table 3.1 describes a few of the more common ones. Each of these shells has slightly different capabilities and features. Keep in mind that the differences in shells do not affect what you can do in UNIX; rather, they affect how easily you can interact with the system.
You'll likely have bash, ksh, or tcsh/csh as your shell, but you can change to one of many other shells fairly easily. As Code Listings 3.3 and 3.4 show, you can start by finding out which shells are available to you. Figure 3.1 shows some shells and how they relate to each other.
Figure 3.1. Shells fit neatly into a few "families" with ...
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