Command line shells

[Dave_Bechtel]

To summarize, and save you some searching:

ash
bash
csh
dash

--Also available by apt-get:

busybox-static
dsh
elfsh
esh
fish
kiss
ksh
lsh
mksh
osh
pdksh
posh
psh
rc
sash
slsh
tcsh
zsh

--Note, these are all COMMAND-LINE shells that do not _require_ a GUI. They provide/support various different command sets, scripting functions, and features.

--Use ' apt-cache show pkgname ' to see the description of each, and see ' man chsh ' for how to use them once installed. You can also run them ad-hoc / in-situ merely by typing the name of the shell from a Bash prompt.

--X-shells are more like window managers / Graphical User Interfaces. X-shells like Sawfish, icewm and XFCE are much less resource-intensive than Gnome or KDE. Sawfish is a good bet if you want to run resource-intensive things like Vmware.

--Terminal emulators under X that provide commandlines include (but are not limited to):
xterm, rxvt, powershell, konsole, eterm, aterm, terminal.

--Each has different package dependencies and resource usage, and can be configured to use a command-line shell such as zsh or any of those listed above. They can also be configured for color/appearance, etc; either using command-line options or init files, or in some cases interactive menus.

CD http://debian.ams.sunysb.edu/knoppix...d/packages.txt
DVD http://debian.ams.sunysb.edu/knoppix...ckages-dvd.txt