Basic bash Shell Commands
Richard A. Blum, Christine Bresnahan · 2015
This chapter describes the basic features available in the bash shell, such as the bash manual, tab auto-completion and how to display a file's contents. It explains how to work with Linux files and directories using the basic commands provided by the bash shell. The GNU bash shell is a program that provides interactive access to the Linux system. It runs as a regular program and is normally started whenever a user logs in to a terminal. Although the bash shell program is automatically started at login, whether a shell command line interface (CLI) is presented depends on which login method is used. The default prompt symbol for the bash shell is the dollar sign ($). This symbol indicates that the shell is waiting for you to enter text. The chapter closes with a discussion on viewing the contents of files.