Working with Alternative Shells
Richard A. Blum, Christine Bresnahan · 2015
This chapter describes the Debian dash shell and the zsh shell. Debian-based Linux distributions use the bash shell as the normal login shell and use the dash shell only as a quick-start shell for the installation script to install the distribution files. The chapter explains the basics of the dash shell and how it differs from the bash shell. The features found in the Debian dash shell are then explained. The zsh shell takes ideas from all the existing shells and adds many unique features to create a full-blown advanced shell designed for programmers. The zsh shell provides a core set of built-in commands, plus the capability to add more command modules. The chapter focuses on the basics of the zsh shell, showing the built-in commands that are available, as well as the command line parameters and environment variables used by the zsh shell.