Bash
Bash, or Bourne-Again SHell, is a Unix shell and command language interpreter for the GNU operating system. It provides a command-line interface for interacting with the operating system, executing commands, and running scripts, functioning as a free software replacement for the Bourne Shell.
Key facts
- First appeared
- 1989
- Category
- technology
- Problem solved
- Bash was created to provide a free (as in freedom) and enhanced alternative to the proprietary Bourne Shell (sh). It aimed to combine the robust scripting capabilities of sh with the interactive features found in csh and ksh (like command-line editing, history, and job control), addressing their respective shortcomings and making a powerful, compatible, and open-source shell widely available.
- Platforms
- Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, macOS, Windows (via WSL, Cygwin, Git Bash)
Related technologies
Notable users
- macOS users (pre-Catalina default, still widely used)
- Cloud Engineers (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Software Developers
- DevOps Engineers
- Amazon
- System Administrators
- Virtually all Linux distributions (as default shell)
- Microsoft (via WSL)