Terminal, Shell, Powershell: What are these even?

Let me share with you this underrated piece of knowledge.

When I started working at my current organization as a Partner Program Analyst, I was a bit annoyed because I wanted to work with the IT Support team. I would always visit my friends on that team to see what they were up to, and I’d see them using a dark interface, typing commands that generated long information. It looked so fancy.

Fast forward two years later, and I now work as a cloud engineer, exposed to all of these Interfaces. Earlier on while getting to know these interfaces, I was confused as to what a terminal, powershell, shell or command prompt was, because they seemed to be used interchangeably.

A Terminal is a text-based interface used to interact with a computer’s operating system. You might also hear it referred to as a CLI (Command Line Interface). Every Operating System — be it Windows, Linux or Mac has a terminal that users can use to interact with the OS, asides from clicking around the GUI.

This Terminal is a software — essentially a translator that gives you access to a computer’s shell. Examples include the Command Prompt on Windows, and the Terminal on MacOS and Linux.

Now, Let’s Talk About the Shell.

The Shell is where the magic happens. After typing your command into the terminal, the shell interpretes that command, and executes it accordingly.

There are different types of shell, each with it’s own unique features. The Bourne-Again Shell known as Bash, is popular amongst Linux System Administrators. Bash is a shell used to manage files, run scripts for automation, and generally control your system.

We also have the Z Shell(Zsh) and Fish, which are more customizable.

• Zsh is similar to Bash but has additional features like better auto-completion and customization.
• Fish is an even more user-friendly shell that could highlight the syntax of your commands, and even provide auto-suggestions.

Honestly I have only used Bash so far, and hopefully, I’ll get to explore the others.

We cannot move forward however, without mentioning the almighty Powershell.

PowerShell is a more advanced shell, designed by Microsoft to be more powerful than the traditional Command Prompt. While the Command Prompt uses simple text-based commands, PowerShell takes things further by allowing the use of scripting, just like other shells. These allows for tasks like automating system management, interacting with APIs, and more.

PowerShell Core can also be used on Linux and macOS, making it a cross-platform tool.

In short, PowerShell is like a shell specifically built to handle more complex system administration and automation tasks, especially on Windows.

Here’s a quick way to understand the relationship between these tools:

• Terminal is the interface where you input and receive output
• Shell is the brain of the terminal, and it interpretes all your text-based commands into a language your computer understands for processing
• PowerShell is that same brain, but with superpowers and the ability to handle even more complex tasks.

When to Use Which?

• Terminal: General System Administration tasks
• Shell: It is integrated within the terminal, uses shell scripting for automation of simple tasks
• PowerShell: Used for complex scripting, managing and automating Windows systems, and when working with .NET Libraries

This is it on Terminal, Shell and Powershell. Thank you for reading. Hopefully this article has given you a degree of clarity.

Love as always,

Benazir