hi

me and some hippie just had a weird conversation and the whole time we didnt understand each other

in the end it was because we had different defintions of the word "shell"

the hippie claims "shell" as the account being accessed over a network using something like ssh

my definition of "shell" is any account being accessed to, and does not necesarily have to be over a network

i have already looked the definitions up on credible resources on the internet but i just wanted to hear some of your opinions

yes i know this is silly

Actually, here is how 'the hippy' refers to it.
I refer to my console on a remote system a shell. Eitherway, it's how I have used the word shell, and how everyone I've talked to has used it.

yeah, chibo is the "hippie" in my story

Bash, ksh, sh, etc are shells.
Accessing them through a network would be having a shell account or shell access.
There are a lot of ways to speak about your shell account using only the word "shell" rather than "shell account".
That would hardly mean that Bash is no longer a shell.

The shell is simply an interface to the kernel and file systems.

It is a command interpreter, takes care of metachar expansion, provides the piping mechanism etc.

sh, csh, ksh, bash, zsh etc are all shell types. It is merely a program. Hence the last field in the /etc/passwd file. Change the field in the /etc/passwd to a different program such as "mail" and that will be the only application you can run when accessing your account.

Many prople have accounts without a shell. Think about pop3 a minute? When you d/l mail from a pop server, you typically do not get a shell. Host your web pages somewhere. 99% of the tijme you do not get a shell account. They simply allow you to ftp to them only.