Choosing your UNIX shell

Whenever you login to a UNIX system you are placed in a program called
the shell, which interprets the commands you type at its prompt.  On
The World, the default shell is the C shell(csh) and its prompt is
"world%".  When you created your World accout, you were given the
opportunity to choose which UNIX shell you'd like to use with your
account.  If you had no preference your World account was created
using the default, the C shell.  

The C shell (csh) was written at the University of California, Berkley
and it provides a C like language with which to write shell scripts -
hence its name.  The World uses the C shell as its default UNIX shell
because it is the standard shell used on SGI machines. Other shells
that you may use are the Bourne shell, TC shell (tcsh), Korn shell
(ksh), and Bourne Again shell (bash) shell.

The C shell allows: command history, command alias, shell scripts and
job control.  The C shell does not offer command line editing, and
can be modified to include filename completion.

The TC shell provides command history, command alias, shell scripts,
filename completion, command line editing, and job control.

The Bourne shell is the original Unix shell written by Steve Bourne of
Bell Labs. It is available on all UNIX systems.  This shell does not
have the interactive facilites provided by modern shells such as the C
shell and Korn shell. You are advised to use another shell which
has these features.  The Bourne shell does provide an easy to use
language with which you can write shell scripts.

The Korn shell (ksh) was written by David Korn of bell labs. It is now
provided as the standard shell on Unix systems.  It provides all the
features of the C and TC shells together with a shell programming
language similar to that of the original Bourne shell It is the most
efficient shell. 

The Bourne Again SHell(bash) was written by the Free Software
Foundation under their GNU initiative. Ultimately it is intended to be
a full implementation of the IEEE Posix Shell and Tools specification.
This shell is widely used within the academic community.  bash
provides all the interactive features of the C shell (csh) and the
Korn shell (ksh). Its programming language is compatible with the
Bourne shell (sh).

The TC Shell, Korn shell and BASH shell allow command history, command
alias, shell scripts, filename completion, command line editing, and
job control.

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