9.14 Summary

In this chapter of Ubuntu Essentials we have taken a brief tour of the Bash shell environment. In the world of graphical desktop environments it is easy to forget that the true power and flexibility of an operating system can often only be utilized by dropping down below the user friendly desktop interface and using a shell environment. Moreover, familiarity with the shell is a necessity when required to administer and maintain server-based systems that do not have the desktop installed or when attempting to repair a system that is damaged to the point that the desktop or Cockpit interface will no longer launch.

The capabilities of the shell go far beyond the areas covered in this chapter. If you are new to the shell then we strongly encourage you to seek out additional resources. Once familiar with the concepts you will quickly find that it is quicker to perform many tasks using the shell in a terminal window than it is to wade through menus and dialogs on the desktop.