Shell

A shell is a program that provides the text-only interface for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Its primary function is to read a command typed into a console or terminal window in a GUI and then execute it. 1 It is essentially the command interpreter. 2

The term shell gets its name from being the outer layer of an operating system. A shell is an interface between the user and the internal parts of the operating system, including the kernel. 1

  1. https://www.linfo.org/shell.html ↩↩

  2. https://www.ibm.com/docs/pt-br/aix/7.1?topic=administration-commands-processes ↩