The Confusion With Linux Shells 

The lowercase 'x' following the username in /etc/passwd is where the encrypted password would normally be, and 'x' means the password is hidden in the shadow password file. It doesn't donate the graphical system for the user.

/bin/sh is "any bourne-compatible shell". If bash is started with this as argv[0], it starts in a special compatibility mode. It is similar to passing the --posix argument with special rules for startup files and argument handling. see "invocation" in the manual.

/bin/sh used to be the Bourne shell.

She sells sea shells on the sea shore

I think if you read the man page os bash. It will say when called as sh, it will run in sh compatability mode.

Awesome video. I love how it starts from a real confusion and goes from there

I use bash. Nothing more, nothing less.

Couple days ago, I've run chsh, set fish as my login shell and... break login in Wayland sessions 😂

I use GNOME shell personally.

You can view /etc/shells which also gives you a list of shells.

I thought 'sh' originally referred to the Bourne shell? And... bash is the 'Bourne Again Shell'? But it is a distinct Unix/Linux shell... I don't think anyone one uses the Bourne shell any longer as it's been superseded by bash, but 'sh' is a distinct shell even though it only provides a subset of functionality relative to bash. For these reasons I suspect they just put in a link to bash on most modern Linux systems when you indicate you wish to log into the Bourne shell rather than providing an installation of the Bourne shell by default. Although I'm not sure you could find a way to install the Bourne shell on most modern Linux systems, in part because I don't think it's 'free' software'.

When people say they use sh they refer to the Bourne shell. This is the shell you get in many docker base images for example (python3-alpine for instance does not have bash by default but you can use sh)

Maybe you were talking to someone who works on unix. The bourne shell sh is still used on hp-ux and solaris.

I prefer dash for scripts simply because it's posix. It took me a long time to get all the bashism I used out of my head. But boy do I miss arrays.

chsh -l don't work. I will stick to using dash.

Cron uses sh. Which on debian based distros is dash. And really, whether cron defaults to sh or dash does not matter, because bash shorthand will not work in either. There are workarounds for sure, but it can be somewhat frustrating when code works just fine in user terminal but not when called from cron, because cron is using dash, not bash.

Meanwhile, people actually running the Bourne Shell...

So sh is the sysvinit of "shells"? I like it even more now

I use whatever is the default. Mostly Bash.

... some folks also mistakenly call /usr/ USER .... 😉

Hey DT, @DistroTube Are you a Shell that your spirit uses to interact with the world? What do you think?

Learned something new today. Thanks DT

I tried out qbsh, but was disappointed with how unlike QBasic it was. I'm thinking about writing my own version.

*Immediately sed replaces all old scripts that have #!/bin/sh => #!/bin/bash* 🤫 Shhh, you saw NOTHING!

Wasn't the original Bourne shell just sh? Oops, Thompson and Mashey shells were first.

Zsh can be made good with extensions and customization. But Fish is good out of the box. And PowerShell somehow still has better syntax than Bash.

She install a shell on a Linux kernel But the use of this shell will fall

i am using the frog _shell ........ welcome to my pond ......

I prefer a 105mm HEAT round myself.

TIL. I thought she was the basic posix shell

Shells & cheese

clicked like before hearing a word. (especially so recently after immolo started doing some fun chsh calamity videos).

DT, don't state that sh is not a shell. Bourne shell (sh) is a shell. It is not installed in most Operating Systems. But a lot scripts use the follwing sheabang #!/bin/sh. So maintainers create a link in /usr/bin/sh to bash or dash.

1. I like that I got the answer I was looking for in the first minute 2. I got to be this video's 666th like

Just like the "I have the oldest xbox known to man" video, "everyone has /bin/sh, it came free with your f-ing Linux"

sh is a interpreter to scripts, you run file.sh and this have a sh bang, the terminal and the shell you are using is going to run sh to run that file, you can change sh to dash, is another sh interpreter but is a lot faster (that is what i hear from bsd and gentoo people a long time)

Nice video .... unfortunately you never got around to telling us how to load a NEW or DIFFERENT shelll ....... maybe you need to start putting together a script ahead of time .....

I'm sorry DT, but what you are telling is not 100% correct. The shell "sh" is the Bourne Shell created by Stephen Bourne at Bell Labs. It started it in 1976 and was released in 1979 and was of course developed for Unix. The shell Bash means "Bourne AGAIN shell" and is a reimplementation of the Bourne Shell for the GNU Project and contained features of sh, csh and ksh. In fact sh, is the father of all these shells that you talk about. All sh scripts are compatible with bash, but bash has a lot more functionality. The reason that you see a link from sh to bash, is for compatibility. The syntax of all sh scripts is compatible with bash. Therefore, if you happen to get a script which was written for sh, it will work because it will be interpreted by bash. There is in fact an implementation of the former sh shell for Linux and it is called "Heirloom Bourne Shell", I don't know who may want to use it though!

Wrong about 'system shell'. System shell is the shell that the system uses, not root users shell. Though they may be the same shell. Should be dash on any Debian derivative. $ which sh should give /usr/bin/sh and $ file /usr/bin/sh should give /usr/bin/sh: symbolic link to dash if $ echo $SHELL does not give /bin/bash your shit is broken.

What are all those numbers in the shell 🔢 Or rather I mean, Why 🤔

bro finally learned from his days of setting sh to fish so proud

On Debian-based systems, looks like `sh` symlinks to `dash` (Tested on Debian, Mint, and Raspbian.).

While most of what you said is good and fairly accurate, I do think you may be missing a subtle point regarding sh. When bash (Bourne again shell) is invoked using the sym link as sh, it causes the shell to run in POSIX compatible 'sh' mode i.e. the extensions, addiitoonal buil-ins and expanded syntax added by bash are disabled and the shell operates in 'sh' compatibility mode. This is quite important and useful. What it means is that any script you write with #!/bin/sh will run on any POSIX compatible (nix system). The script may still fail because it relies on other programs which are not installed or not the same, but it will not fail due to an error in the shell itself. For example, I could write a shell script which can run on Linux, BSD and macOS. So, if someone says they are running sh sehll, they may in fact be running sh (I think a 'real' sh still exists on BSD). This ability to run on different platforms can be very useful when you want to do things like simplify or automate build and install scripts for software which can be built for different platforms. For example, you could probably write a sh script to run git, configure, build and install emacs on Linux, BSD and macOS. Finally, you will still find real 'sh' shells on small systems - systems with tight resource constraints as it has a small footprint and uses both less disk and memory. Also note that 'bash' also supportes two different sets of init files, allowing you to have different configurations for when it is invoked as sh and when it is invoked as bash. SO /bin/sh and /bin/bash (or the more modern /usr/bin/sh /usr/bin/bash) are NOT the same and some people do actually run with sh as their shell.

I love to use the fish shell :)

Giiven that most most Linux distributions use Bash for their default users'/interactive shell, unless someone is using one of the BSDs or a very obscure Linux distro with odd defaults, if a user says they're using sh or /bin/sh, it's probably safe to assume that they're using bash. If they're using something else, then they probably changed it themselves and they won't be the ones unsure of which shell they're using. I tend to stick with the default, and in at least twenty years of using Linux, that has practically *always* been Bash.

What shell do you use? I use the symlink that points to whatever I set with chsh. LMAO I'd never truly troll someone who didn't know that though. There was a point in time not long ago I was asking about shell behavior in a terminal emulator irc channel. My brother in christ shell and terminal are two different layers entirely. 😁

Have you tried using powershell as the default shell ? 😀

No -l for Kubuntu. Any other utils to list shells?

Nushell

Im new to linux and recently started learning Bash. Did I make a good choice with it, or should've I started with another shell? I know it comes as a default to a lot of distros, hence I chose it. Still confused as to what is the difference between the differerent shells, though..

Very good and very nice! Thank you!

I thought the shell was the CLI (command line interface), otherwise known as the terminal.

Never seen anyone confused about this, but they need to be kindly advised to read the manual

Thank you again, DT, for another insightful video. This is exactly why I point ppl to your YT channel when they ask about learning Linux.