Back to basics with the Bash terminal

We've done this before. In Ubuntu User #21 [1], we also dedicated our cover story to the shell. Back then, we talked mainly about scripting. We showed how to add "graphical" text menus to terminal-based apps, how to clean up your code to make it more legible and maintainable, and how you could make Bash scripts more efficient and faster by compiling them into machine code.

This time, of course, it's different. In fact, it is impossible to cover everything the shell can do in one, may I say, puny cover section. Whole big, bulky, and very heavy books have been written about the subject after all. And, if that were not enough, the shell has grown a lot since its inception: New instructions, old instructions that have learnt new tricks, and improved and repurposed versions of classic commands all guarantee that writing a complete treatise on the subject is all but impossible.

In this issue, we bring you an illustrated guide to the shell. We're broaching low-level, very basic commands this time around – the building blocks, as it were, of which whole systems are made.To make things simpler, the articles themselves include comprehensive tables listing common and exotic (although always useful) options for each instruction, along with screenshots showing how to use them in context. Visit our FTP site [2] to get the sample files and the longer scripts so you can start practicing immediately on data manipulation and file processing from the command line.

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