Shell

A shell is a commandline interpreter that offers a text-based interface to users. It can be used as commandline interface (CLI) on a terminal or terminal emulator, or as a script interpreter running in the background.

Shells available on Gentoo

 * bash is the default shell on Gentoo, and is also used by portage, its package manager.
 * zsh is an advanced shell that is the chosen interactive shell for many users.
 * mksh is an actively developed free implementation of the Korn Shell, and well suited for scripting.
 * dash is the Debian Almquist shell, a small, fast, and posix-compliant shell suited for startup scripts (as replacement).
 * tcsh is an enhanced version of the Berkeley C Shell (csh).
 * fish is the Friendly Interactive SHell.