Question

Ok, I hope this question makes some sense but what is the difference between a bash shell and a bash terminal? Example. When I first open up terminal I have a prompt with my current dir and my user name. In the terminal window header it says -bash- , when I type echo $SHELL I get bash. So by default the shell is bash. Where my confusion comes into play is when I type bash. My prompt then goes to bash-3.2$.Obviously it’s a different mode. Are ther any major differences? I have read the man page with no answer. I understand what a bash shell is but just do not get the difference. Thanks for the clarity in advance.

Answer 1

There is no difference, they are both instances of the bash shell.

The reason you are seeing a different prompt is that your initial login shell sources ~/.bash_profile where presumably you have your prompt set. When you type bash it invokes another shell but because this one isn’t a login shell, it doesn’t source ~/.bash_profile and so you get the default prompt.

If you were call bash -l, (which invokes bash as if it were a login shell) I bet you would see that your original prompt remains