Unix shell

A console command line interface (click to enlarge).

A Unix shell, also called terminal or console, is a program that accepts Unix commands from the keyboard and executes them. These commands can be for example

• ls to list files
• cp to copy files
• man to get more information on commands

The commands do not need to come from the keyboard, they will, generally spoken, come from stdin. A Unix shell is a special command line interface that is intended for the control of a Unix system.