In recent years, the Unix operating system has seen a huge boost in its popularity, especially with the
emergence of Linux. For programmers and users of Unix, this comes as no surprise: Unix was designed to
provide an environment that s powerful yet easy to use.
One of the main strengths of Unix is that it comes with a large collection of standard programs. These
programs perform a wide variety of tasks from listing your files to reading email. Unlike other operating
systems, one of the key features of Unix is that these programs can be combined to perform complicated
tasks and solve your problems.
One of the most powerful standard programs available in Unix is the shell. The shell is a program that
provides you with a consistent and easy-to-use environment for executing programs in Unix. If you have
ever used a Unix system, you have interacted with the shell.
