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bash: What is Bash?

 
 1.1 What is Bash?
 =================
 
 Bash is the shell, or command language interpreter, for the GNU
 operating system.  The name is an acronym for the 'Bourne-Again SHell',
 a pun on Stephen Bourne, the author of the direct ancestor of the
 current Unix shell 'sh', which appeared in the Seventh Edition Bell Labs
 Research version of Unix.
 
    Bash is largely compatible with 'sh' and incorporates useful features
 from the Korn shell 'ksh' and the C shell 'csh'.  It is intended to be a
 conformant implementation of the IEEE POSIX Shell and Tools portion of
 the IEEE POSIX specification (IEEE Standard 1003.1).  It offers
 functional improvements over 'sh' for both interactive and programming
 use.
 
    While the GNU operating system provides other shells, including a
 version of 'csh', Bash is the default shell.  Like other GNU software,
 Bash is quite portable.  It currently runs on nearly every version of
 Unix and a few other operating systems - independently-supported ports
 exist for MS-DOS, OS/2, and Windows platforms.
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