Linux has no lack of command-line shells. There’s ‘sh’, ‘bash’, ‘ksh’, ‘zsh’ and more. To get the most out of them, however, requires a bit of learning, time and work; something many of us don’t have time for. For those of us who want the power and pretty without the pain, there’s one shell that might be just what the doctor ordered.
At one time or another most Linux users will—either out of need or curiosity—venture onto the command-line. Unless their distribution has changed or modified the defaults, for most users it will mean being confronted with a pretty stark Bash prompt. Bash has been the de facto default shell for the majority of Linux distros for good reason. It’s extremely stable, powerful and flexible, while also being almost %100 POSIX standards-compliant. Some distros go the extra step and try to make bash a bit more user friendly, with coloring and things like tab completions to make finding commands and files easier. For the most casual of users, that alone might be enough. For those who would like a little more usability and friendliness from their terminal but aren’t command-line enthusiasts, trying to modify or enhance bash can be akin to trying to learn Cuneiform. There are other shells as mentioned above, like the very popular zsh. However, just like bash, getting some ease-of-use and friendliness out of them is going to require a fair amount of tinkering. Fortunately, for those of us who want some of those cool features without having to get intimate with configuration files, there’s fish. (Read the rest at Freedom Penguin)
