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Graphical Shells: Unix-Like Systems

Shells provide a command line interface to operating systems, allowing users to run programs and manage files by typing commands. Command line shells allow saving sequences of commands in batch files to automate routine tasks. Many shells also include programming elements like variables and conditionals. Graphical shells provide a graphical user interface instead of a text-based command line. They represent files and programs with graphical icons and windows rather than text commands. Graphical shells build on top of windowing systems like X Window or Wayland, using a window manager and programs for launching apps and managing files and settings.

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96 views

Graphical Shells: Unix-Like Systems

Shells provide a command line interface to operating systems, allowing users to run programs and manage files by typing commands. Command line shells allow saving sequences of commands in batch files to automate routine tasks. Many shells also include programming elements like variables and conditionals. Graphical shells provide a graphical user interface instead of a text-based command line. They represent files and programs with graphical icons and windows rather than text commands. Graphical shells build on top of windowing systems like X Window or Wayland, using a window manager and programs for launching apps and managing files and settings.

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Gokul Krish
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Shell (computing) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Shell_(computing)#GUI

keyboard or passing keystrokes on as data to


be processed.

A feature of many command-line shells is


the ability to save sequences of commands
for re-use. A data file can contain sequences
of commands which the CLI can be made to
follow as if typed in by a user. Special
features in the CLI may apply when it is
carrying out these stored instructions. Such
batch files (script files) can be used
repeatedly to automate routine operations
such as initializing a set of programs when a
system is restarted. Batch mode use of shells
usually involves structures, conditionals,
variables, and other elements of
programming languages; some have the
bare essentials needed for such a purpose,
others are very sophisticated programming
languages in and of themselves. Conversely,
some programming languages can be used
interactively from an operating system shell
or in a purpose-built program. Bash, a widely adopted Unix shell

The command-line shell may offer features


such as command-line completion, where the interpreter expands commands based on a few
characters input by the user. A command-line interpreter may offer a history function, so that the user
can recall earlier commands issued to the system and repeat them, possibly with some editing. Since
all commands to the operating system had to be typed by the user, short command names and
compact systems for representing program options were common. Short names were sometimes hard
for a user to recall, and early systems lacked the storage resources to provide a detailed on-line user
instruction guide.

Graphical shells
A graphical user interface (GUI) provides means for manipulating programs graphically, by allowing
for operations such as opening, closing, moving and resizing windows, as well as switching focus
between windows. Graphical shells may be included with desktop environments or come separately,
even as a set of loosely coupled utilities.

Most graphical user interfaces develop the metaphor of an "electronic desktop", where data files are
represented as if they were paper documents on a desk, and application programs similarly have
graphical representations instead of being invoked by command names.

Unix-like systems

Graphical shells typically build on top of a windowing system. In the case of X Window System or
Wayland, the shell consists of an X window manager or a Wayland compositor, respectively, as well as
of one or multiple programs providing the functionality to start installed applications, to manage

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