A terminal is an environment for text input/output. Inside the terminal, one runs command-line and text mode programs (including shells).

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225
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What is the exact difference between a 'terminal', a 'shell', a 'tty' and a 'console'?

I think these terms almost refer to the same thing, when used loosely: terminal shell tty console What exactly do each of these terms refer to?
28
votes
4answers
12k views

How can I close a terminal without killing the command running in it?

Sometimes I want to start a process and forget about it. If I start it from the command line, like this: redshift I can't close the terminal, or it will kill the process. Can I run a command in ...
44
votes
2answers
15k views

How to unfreeze after accidentally pressing Ctrl-S in a terminal?

It's a situation that has happened quite often to me: after I press (with a different intention) Ctrl-S in a terminal, the interaction (input or output) with it is frozen. It's probably a kind of ...
11
votes
3answers
3k views

Removing control chars (including console codes / colours) from script output

I can use the "script" command to record an interactive session at the command line. However, this includes all control characters and colour codes. I can remove control characters (like backspace) ...
14
votes
4answers
1k views

What happens to the output of a process that has been disowned and lost its terminal?

If I close the virtual terminal, where some process was started, does the output just go straight to /dev/null, or can it pollute memory somehow? Can I anyhow grab the output to continue reading it at ...
23
votes
6answers
2k views

Is it possible to configure Bash so that STDERR can be a different color than STDOUT?

I'd like to set up my terminal to have STDOUT print regularly, but have STDERR print out in a different color, namely red, so I can tell the difference between the two, ie: STDOUT: HELLO WORLD ...
4
votes
2answers
993 views

Can I set my local machine's terminal colors to use those of the machine I ssh into?

I have a color scheme that I like for when I'm in a terminal, but I ssh into the machine I work on from multiple sources (locally, PuTTY, my netbook, etc.) and I want to maintain the same color scheme ...
6
votes
2answers
5k views

How can I switch between ttys without using screen?

So lets say you boot up your linux install all the way to the desktop. You start up a gnome-terminal/konsole/whatever so you have a tty to enter commands to. Now lets say I SSH into that same ...
32
votes
5answers
22k views

How to split the terminal into more than one “view”?

From vi, if you issue the command :sp, the screen splits into two "views", allowing you to edit more than one file from the same terminal. Along those same lines, is there a way to have multiple ...
42
votes
2answers
1k views

Clear / erase a mistyped invisible password on a shell / terminal in Linux

One thing that annoys me using Linux's terminal is when I have to type a invisble password, like when you run ssh. Sometimes I mistype one or more letters and then I have to press backspace key a few ...
19
votes
3answers
5k views

How can I break away from an SSH session that has crashed?

Many times I have an SSH session that doesn't respond anymore (for example, when I lose internet connection and then reconnect). Ctrl+C, Ctrl+D, Ctrl+Z and a zillion of key presses don't have any ...
10
votes
1answer
983 views

What protocol/standard is used by terminals?

I was wondering how the "GUI" of a command line application is communicated over a network. Most of the time, it's quite simple (plain text / input) but sometimes it's more complex (aptitude). Is it ...
12
votes
6answers
3k views

How to check if bash can print colors

I want to know if there's any way to check if my program can output terminal output using colors or not. Running commands like less and looking at the output from a program that outputs using ...
6
votes
7answers
4k views

Disable screen blanking on text console

I'm running linux clusters, mostly on SLES10. The servers are mostly blades, accessed via remote console. There is a real console in the server room, but switched off. I would like to disable the ...
2
votes
2answers
181 views

How do I prevent a script from terminating when the shell exits?

In particular, I created a script to start Firefox which I double-click and choose 'Run in terminal,' but when the shell exits Firefox is killed immediately. How do I prevent this from happening?

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