Summary

In this chapter, we’ve completed laying the groundwork for the chapters to come. We explained the different types of shell sessions, and then looked at the configuration files that affect the shell environment at both the global and user levels. Then, we looked at how to set shell options and how to create and use aliases.

Now that you know the basics of how a shell operates, you’re ready to tackle some meatier issues, like how to use text-stream filters. We’ll start with that in the next chapter. I’ll see you there.