Terminal (emulator)

The terminal itself is a physical device that allows inputting and receiving information from a computer. The most important thing is that it is not necessary for the processing of instructions and data to be carried out on the terminal itself.

Certainly, in today’s world, it is common to interact with the operating system in text mode. Well, in most cases, we will not refer to this meaning of terminal. In fact, the correct term refers to the so-called terminal emulators. These allow us to use text mode within a graphical user interface. This other class of terminals are merely applications that run and give us access to a shell. In fact, they usually allow multiple shell types to be used. This is the case, for example, of Windows Terminal. By default, we will be able to manage the following: Windows PowerShell, PowerShell, Command Prompt, Azure Cloud Shell, the multiple distributions we have installed in the Linux Subsystem (WSL), etc.

On the other hand, Windows Terminal is not the only Windows terminal emulator. Indeed, there are MobaXterm, Cmder, ConEmu and others. However, in the case of Unix-based systems (Linux, *BSD, macOS), the catalog of available terminals is multiplied to infinity. In fact, each desktop environment usually offers its own (Gnome Terminal in GNOME, Konsole in KDE, iTerm in macOS…). But it is also possible to install third-party alternatives for all tastes (Terminator, Alacritty, Guake, st…).

Each terminal emulator differs by offering its own graphical interfaces, functionalities, and configuration options. For example, keyboard shortcuts, font and background customization, clipboard management, etc.

Consola [Virtual]

Console is a term that is often used inconsistently. In fact, even more so than the other terms in this list. Additionally, multiple definitions are available on the Internet. In fact, the discrepancies start even in the origin of the word. For some, the old physical console is exactly the same as a physical terminal. On the other hand, others introduce certain nuances, considering the former as a subset of the latter.

What happens when we talk about virtual console? What happens when we talk about virtual console? Many sources consider it, also, synonymous with (terminal emulator.) However, it would be more correct to refer to it as a shell session. Let’s see, let’s suppose we open a terminal emulator and start typing commands directly. In that case, we are, effectively, using a terminal and a console.

On the other hand, suppose we open two tabs in the terminal emulator, whether they are from the same shell. In that case, we are already using two consoles. It can also happen that we subdivide a tab using tools such as a multiplexer (for example, Tmux), or functions such as split table of Windows Terminal. In such a case, the number of consoles will continue to multiply, even if we are only using a single terminal.

In addition, when using a Linux system, we always have several consoles open (although not visible). We are talking about the so-called ‘TTY’, which we can access with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + function key (one per key). Part of them will be graphic consoles. However, the others will be text consoles, each running in parallel with the others. Additionally, all of them working outside our graphical environment, so we would not be using them from terminal emulators.

Shell

We have already mentioned, when talking about terminals, several examples of different shells that can be found in Windows. As with terminals, the number of shells in Unix systems multiplies. Certainly, Bash is usually installed as the default shell. However, it is possible to change it for different ones, such as the very popular Zsh. Remember that macOS ended up adopting it as a default shell. Other options include the emerging Fish, the old Ksh and Tcsh, or minority options such as Xonsh.

The function of the shell is to interpret the commands we enter. You might think that there can’t be much difference in how some commands are interpreted. However, there are many variables to watch out for. For example, the different syntax of the scripts, or aspects such as the possibility of creating aliases and defining variables. Also, the existence of syntax highlighting or auto-completion functions. Likewise, the way in which the system output is displayed on the screen. Well, all these elements can make the user experience vary significantly depending on which shell we use.

Command interpreter (or command line)

Every shell is a command interpreter. However, not every shell is a shell. A command interpreter (also called CLI), is any software that interacts with us through the input of text commands. Some CLIs run on top of a shell and are not intended to be a way to control the operating system. Instead, they aim to be just a very specific software or online service. Examples of this can be NPM, IPython, GitHub CLI, AWS CLI or our favorite SSH client. Very well, in this way we have made clear the differences between terminal, console, shell and command line. Bye!

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The best definition of what Fish Shell is is provided by the project website.

Fish is a smart and user-friendly command-line shell for Linux, macOS, and the rest of the family.

Some of the main features of Fish are

• Autosuggestions
• Fully scriptable.
• its syntax is simple, clean, and consistent.

This shell we will only have to install it to start using it in a short time. Forget about complicated configurations and installing add-ons or extra plugins.

Install the latest version of Fish Shell on Ubuntu 20.04

Installing the latest version of Fish Shell guarantees us to use a modern version, with many bugs fixed but above all, with important new features for us to take advantage of.

So whenever we can, we should always get the latest stable version.

So, to do this, open a terminal and make sure that Ubuntu is fully up to date

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Now proceed to add the Fish repository for Ubuntu

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:fish-shell/release-3

Next, refresh APT so that the repository is already part of the system

sudo apt update

And proceed to install Fish by running

sudo apt install fish

Now just open a terminal and run

fish

Making Fish the default shell

If you install Fish it is because you want to use it and the best way to do that is to set Fish as the default shell.

To do this just run

chsh -s /usr/bin/fish

If you want to revert the change, you can do it as follows:

chsh -s /bin/bash

So, enjoy it.

Conclusion

Fish shell is a valid alternative to Bash as far as shell is concerned. Fast and handy it can help us with our daily terminal tasks. Now you know how to install it without any problems.

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How to enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux

WSL is a feature that allows Windows 10 users to use the Bash of the available Linux distribution. In addition, WSL provides a Linux-compatible kernel interface developed by Microsoft. Also, we can have the typical Linux directories like Home or Bin in Windows and the Windows directories in Linux bash. But maybe the most relevant aspect is to be able to use Bash commands inside Windows without the need to resort to a virtual machine. Well, let’s see how to enable this system. In the first place, follow this path to enter the optional features of Windows. Control Panel>Programs>Turn windows features on or off

In the box below, scroll down to find Windows Subsystem for Linux. Please check the appropriate box.

Wait a few seconds while the features are installed. Then restart the computer to confirm the changes.

Download and Install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Once the configuration is enabled, just go to the Windows Store and download the available distro. At the moment the following options are ready for download: Ubuntu, Kali, Open Suse Leap 15-1, Debian and Alpine WSL. Undoubtedly in the future more will be added. Well, this time we will use Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. You can download it from this link. Press Get and wait while the program downloads.

Once the download is complete, you can launch the program from the same store. Or you can also type Ubuntu from the Windows search engine. Please wait a few moments while the installation is completed. Then assign any user name and add a password.

Using Ubuntu for the first time

Once the preparations have been made, it’s time to test the operation of Ubuntu. With this intention, update the list of packages in the repositories by running the following command:

 sudo apt-get update 

Then type the password and press enter. Immediately the ubuntu bash will start working.

Well, finally we’ve seen how to install and use bash in Windows 10. From this moment on, just type Ubuntu in the search bar to launch the app. Before I say goodbye, I invite you to see our post about Microsoft employees infected with COVID-19. Bye

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To start, PowerShell is a powerful console for advanced users like sysadmin or developers. It is available for Windows (obviously), Linux, and macOS. In this new version, it comes loaded with many new features.

First of all, PowerShell is built with Microsoft’s NetCore 3 technology. This allows the application to be faster and more stable, but also more efficient.

On the other hand, in this new version, a problem that affects Linux users is fixed, and that is that in previous versions the execution of the ls -l command that lists the files in a folder was not reliable because the information of the files was lost.

In the same way, Powershell 7 also incorporates new operators. Among them the ternary operator (?) as well as new pipe chains (|| or &&). In addition, a null operator ( $ null ). As we see these novelties will be better used by advanced users.

Another strong point of this new version is that it increases the backward compatibility with previous versions. Allowing users not to suffer from the changes previously implemented and that can be executed in this version.

PowerShell 7 avilable for many systems

Microsoft has distributed PowerShell 7 for many systems and of course for many Linux distributions. According to the release note, these are the supported ones:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) / CentOS 7.
• CentOS 8.
• Fedora 30+.
• Debian 9.
• Ubuntu LTS 16.04+.
• Alpine Linux 3.8+

Although you may also be able to implement it in other distributions such as OpenSUSE.

You can download the packages from the project’s Github website.

In the case of Ubuntu, I downloaded the package for the distribution and installed it with gdebi.

:~$ sudo gdebi powershell-lts_7.0.0-1.ubuntu.18.04_amd64.deb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done
Reading state information... Done
Requires the installation of the following packages: liblttng-ust-ctl4 liblttng-ust0 liburcu6 

PowerShell is an automation and configuration management platform.
 It consists of a cross-platform command-line shell and associated scripting language.
Do you want to install the software package? [y/N]:y
Get:1 http://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 liburcu6 amd64 0.10.1-1 [52.1 kB]                                                                     
Get:2 http://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 liblttng-ust-ctl4 amd64 2.10.1-1 [80.8 kB]                                                        
Get:3 http://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 liblttng-ust0 amd64 2.10.1-1 [154 kB]                                                             
Fetched 287 kB in 0s (0 B/s)                                                                                                                                            
Selecting previously unselected package liburcu6:amd64.
(Reading database ... 589815 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../liburcu6_0.10.1-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking liburcu6:amd64 (0.10.1-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package liblttng-ust-ctl4:amd64.
Preparing to unpack .../liblttng-ust-ctl4_2.10.1-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking liblttng-ust-ctl4:amd64 (2.10.1-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package liblttng-ust0:amd64.
Preparing to unpack .../liblttng-ust0_2.10.1-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking liblttng-ust0:amd64 (2.10.1-1) ...
Setting up liburcu6:amd64 (0.10.1-1) ...
Setting up liblttng-ust-ctl4:amd64 (2.10.1-1) ...
Setting up liblttng-ust0:amd64 (2.10.1-1) ...
Setting up powershell-lts (7.0.0-1.ubuntu.18.04) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.27-3ubuntu1) ...
(Reading database ... 589858 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack powershell-lts_7.0.0-1.ubuntu.18.04_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking powershell-lts (7.0.0-1.ubuntu.18.04) over (7.0.0-1.ubuntu.18.04) ...
Setting up powershell-lts (7.0.0-1.ubuntu.18.04) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2ubuntu0.1) ...

And so you can enjoy it.

No doubt this was unthinkable several years ago for Microsoft to make its tools compatible with Linux. This tells us that every day more and more Linux is important.

Please share this post and join our Telegram channel.

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Today, let’s grab and enjoy the C Shell – the shell using the C++ syntax instead of the popular and familiar “bash” syntax. It’s an old shell. However, the shell gets much love from the Unix community, especially the programmers.

For enjoying C Shell, you have to get the Tcsh – a modified version of the original C Shell with new features and enhancements.

Let’s get C Shell right away!

Installing C Shell (Tcsh)

C Shell is a very cool shell and a nice alternative to the default Bash shell. However, almost all the Linux distros don’t set C Shell by default. You have to install it and set it as the default shell manually.

Run the following command(s) according to your own Linux distro –

• Ubuntu

sudo apt install tcsh

• Debian

sudo apt-get install tcsh

• Fedora

sudo dnf install tcsh

• OpenSUSE

sudo zypper install tcsh

• Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S tcsh

• Other Linux distros

If your system wasn’t listed above, you have to manually find out the package for your system. The package should be named as “tsch” or “c shell”. Tcsh has been around for quite a long time, so your chance of finding out C Shell is pretty high.

Listing all the shells

Before we switch to the new C Shell, we have to know the location of the shell(s). Run the following command –

cat /etc/shells/

In most cases, you’ll get more than one available shells in your system. Run the following command for the “tcsh” only.

cat /etc/shells | grep tcsh

It’s time to shift towards Tcsh.

chsh

Now, when asked about “Login shell”, enter “/bin/tcsh” (without quotes).

Voila! C Shell is your default shell now!

Reverting back to Bash

Not interested in C Shell anymore? Run the following command for reverting back to Bash –

chsh

Enter the value –

/bin/bash

Voila! Bash is back!

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