[art_director]

As the subject line suggests I'm a command line noob.

I'm curious, what shell do the seasoned vets prefer? I've been dabbling with bash and tcsh but, with my limited knowledge, I notice little difference.

Thanks.

[utidjian]

Most people prefer, as with so many things, the shell they are most familiar with.

I prefer bash.

[art_director]

I suspected that would be the answer.

Thanks.

[Gavin]

For basic 'type a line into the terminal' stuff you won't see much difference at all.

some shells have ways to get around and edit a line easily. jump to the end, delete the previous word, etc. You really won't use this unless you really get into it hard core.

the main differences I've found are in writing scripts: setting and showing vars and syntax for looping, ifs, etc. Some are more c like and some remind me of pascal (if I remember right)

try writing the same script in 2 or three shells and go with whatever seems more intuitive to you. If you are not writing scripts then it doesn't matter which one you use.

[art_director]

Thanks for the reply, Gavin.

In the short term I won't be writing any scripts. I'm feeling my way through things and getting accustomed to and comfortable with the environment(s) and commands. Eventually I would like to begin scripting.

[Phil Sherry]

Originally posted by art_director:
In the short term I won't be writing any scripts. I'm feeling my way through things and getting accustomed to and comfortable with the environment(s) and commands. Eventually I would like to begin scripting.

given that OS X now uses bash instead of tcsh, you may as well just roll with bash. any 10.3 books on the subject will be using bash, so it makes sense.

[larkost]

I like the defaults on the zsh shell a bit better (it keep tends to be setup the same no matter the platform... there are big differences in the default bash UI setup between linux MacOS X, and FreeBSD). But I wind up doing most of my shell programming in bash (it is nearly everywhere with a fairly stable shell environment).

[utidjian]

If you do decide to use bash you may find these links useful:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/index.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html

I would read them in the order listed. Those HOWTOs were written for Linux but they apply to all bash shells on whatever platform.

If you end up doing much work with the shell (any shell) the "killer app"(TM) for much shell work is screen (see man screen for more info). screen is part of the standard install in Mac OS X for a while now.

[art_director]

Thanks for the reply Phil.

To date I've been sticking with bash for that very reason.

The book that's helping me get my feet wet is 'Mac OS X Panther Unleashed'. It seems to be written for command line noobs like myself and does a smart job of walking you through the system.

Have any other suggestions?

My father is a programmer and is well-versed in Unix. He suggested I get 'Unix in a Nutshell'. He says it's a good bible to have at hand but it will be over my head for a spell.

[art_director]

Thanks for your input, Larkost.

Sounds like I should concentrate on bash for the moment but I'm going to have a look at zsh when the time comes. Good to know what folks like and why.

[art_director]

Thanks for the reply and the links, utidjian. Looks lie a treasure trove of helpful tutorials. My, I have my work cut out for me, eh?

[nokq]

If you get into bash, I suggest you learn the emacs style edit bindings. Comes in handy when you want to jump over to learning emacs (THE unix texteditor).

Cesar