Bash is a Unix shell and command language written by Brian Fox for the GNU Project as a free software replacement for the Bourne shell. First released in 1989, it has been used as the default login shell for most Linux distributions. A version is also available for Windows 10 via the Windows Subsystem for Linux. It is also the default user shell in Solaris 11. Bash was also the default shell in all versions of Apple macOS prior to the 2019 release of macOS Catalina, which changed the default shell to zsh, although Bash remains available as an alternative shell.
The editor war is the rivalry between users of the Emacs and vi text editors. The rivalry has become a lasting part of hacker culture and the free software community.
GNU is an extensive collection of free software, which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operating systems popularly known as Linux. Most of GNU is licensed under the GNU Project's own General Public License (GPL).
Irssi is an IRC client program for Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Microsoft Windows. It was originally written by Timo Sirainen, and released under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later in January 1999.
A Unix shell is a command-line interpreter or shell that provides a command line user interface for Unix-like operating systems. The shell is both an interactive command language and a scripting language, and is used by the operating system to control the execution of the system using shell scripts.
vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.
A background process is a computer process that runs behind the scenes and without user intervention. Typical tasks for these processes include logging, system monitoring, scheduling, and user notification. The background process usually is a child process created by a control process for processing a computing task. After creation, the child process will run on its own, performing the task independent of the control process, freeing the control process of performing that task.
curses is a terminal control library for Unix-like systems, enabling the construction of text user interface (TUI) applications.
In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an early form of human–computer interaction, before the advent of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Like GUIs, they may use the entire screen area and accept mouse and other inputs. They may also use color and often structure the display using special graphical characters such as ┌ and ╣, referred to in Unicode as the "box drawing" set. The modern context of use is usually a terminal emulator.
In some operating systems, including Unix and Linux, a pseudoterminal, pseudotty, or PTY is a pair of pseudo-device endpoints (files) which establish asynchronous, bidirectional communication (IPC) channel between two or more processes. The master provides means by which a terminal emulator process controls the slave. The slave, emulates a hardware text terminal device. PTY are similar to bidirectional pipes.
In the X Window System, an X display manager is a graphical login manager which starts a login session on an X server from the same or another computer.
In computer networking, STREAMS is the native framework in Unix System V for implementing character device drivers, network protocols, and inter-process communication. In this framework, a stream is a chain of coroutines that pass messages between a program and a device driver. STREAMS originated in Version 8 Research Unix, as Streams.
A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, UnixWare, and macOS in which the system console of the computer can be used to switch between multiple virtual consoles to access unrelated user interfaces. Virtual consoles date back at least to Xenix and Concurrent CP/M in the 1980s.
Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution.
In computing, tput is a standard Unix operating system command which makes use of terminal capabilities.
Twin is a windowing environment with mouse support, window manager, terminal emulator and networked clients, all inside a text mode display. Twin is tested on Linux and on FreeBSD; porting to SunOS is in progress.
Byobu is an enhancement for the GNU Screen terminal multiplexer or tmux used with the Linux computer operating system that can be used to provide on-screen notification or status, and tabbed multi-window management. It is intended to improve terminal sessions when users connect to remote servers.
tmux is an open-source terminal multiplexer for Unix-like operating systems. It allows multiple terminal sessions to be accessed simultaneously in a single window. It is useful for running more than one command-line program at the same time. It can also be used to detach processes from their controlling terminals, allowing remote sessions to remain active without being visible.
A terminal multiplexer is a software application that can be used to multiplex several separate pseudoterminal-based login sessions inside a single terminal display, terminal emulator window, PC/workstation system console, or remote login session, or to detach and reattach sessions from a terminal. It is useful for dealing with multiple programs from a command line interface, and for separating programs from the session of the Unix shell that started the program, particularly so a remote process continues running even when the user is disconnected.
