<story><title>What is the difference between a terminal, a shell, a TTY and a console? (2012)</title><url>https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4126/what-is-the-exact-difference-between-a-terminal-a-shell-a-tty-and-a-con</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>But it misses the most obvious answer (and most likely where the question originated from): &lt;i&gt;terminal, console, and shell often refer to the same thing&lt;/i&gt;.
If one is following a tutorial and it says to “enter this command into your console”, they mean the same as type it in your terminal app or into your shell.  The terms are indeed somewhat interchangeable, as a starting point at least for the clearest answer.&lt;p&gt;Then we can dig into actual differences: the shell is actually an application that runs inside the terminal&amp;#x2F;console, and you can swap in your favorite shell app; on MacOS, the Console and Terminal apps look similar, but Terminal is what you should use normally, with Console more for debugging system outputs.  And so on.&lt;p&gt;Humor people with practical answers sometimes, for christsake, instead of these agonzing pendantic expositions.  Side notes on pseudo-ttys, ioctl, virtual condoles, and control sequences when the OP posted an elementary question??  Yeah, we get it, professor: &lt;i&gt;you are overburdened with information which you must share.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item><item><author>blendergeek</author><text>Fortunately the top answer doesn&amp;#x27;t suffer from that issue as far as I can tell. It is much longer and explains both the etymology of the terms and how they are used today.</text></item><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>Classic Stack Overflow, willfully ignores the likely intent of the questioner, with pedantic answers which ignore the most common modern usages of the terms.  Subtle condescension and authoritative declarations (“a console MUST be a piece of hardware”) which are actually incorrect in modern usage.&lt;p&gt;SO really does attract misanthropes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zzyzxd</author><text>Well, the OP already realized that they often refer to the same thing, and was just curious about the fundamental differences.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Side notes on pseudo-ttys, ioctl, virtual condoles, and control sequences when the OP posted an elementary question?? Yeah, we get it, professor: you are overburdened with information which you must share.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if it&amp;#x27;s elementary but I knew ioctl long before I learned that &amp;quot;tty&amp;quot; stands for teletypewriter. (Top answer: &amp;quot;tty is a strange abbreviation&amp;quot;. Me: ha, sure, because if you are curious enough to look up for the abbreviation, the long form itself is pretty much self explanatory).&lt;p&gt;The answer doesn&amp;#x27;t feel condescending to me. Similarly, my professor talked to me like that when I was a student and I didn&amp;#x27;t find that condescending -- it&amp;#x27;s just a person who knows a particular topic better than me trying to make a gentle introduction.&lt;p&gt;If someone not only answered my question, but also voluntarily spent another hour telling me all the background stories, I would have nothing but gratitude. Sure, some of those people may not be the nicest person in the world. if you just need a quick answer and be done, you can ask ChatGPT to summarize it.</text></comment>
<story><title>What is the difference between a terminal, a shell, a TTY and a console? (2012)</title><url>https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4126/what-is-the-exact-difference-between-a-terminal-a-shell-a-tty-and-a-con</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>But it misses the most obvious answer (and most likely where the question originated from): &lt;i&gt;terminal, console, and shell often refer to the same thing&lt;/i&gt;.
If one is following a tutorial and it says to “enter this command into your console”, they mean the same as type it in your terminal app or into your shell.  The terms are indeed somewhat interchangeable, as a starting point at least for the clearest answer.&lt;p&gt;Then we can dig into actual differences: the shell is actually an application that runs inside the terminal&amp;#x2F;console, and you can swap in your favorite shell app; on MacOS, the Console and Terminal apps look similar, but Terminal is what you should use normally, with Console more for debugging system outputs.  And so on.&lt;p&gt;Humor people with practical answers sometimes, for christsake, instead of these agonzing pendantic expositions.  Side notes on pseudo-ttys, ioctl, virtual condoles, and control sequences when the OP posted an elementary question??  Yeah, we get it, professor: &lt;i&gt;you are overburdened with information which you must share.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item><item><author>blendergeek</author><text>Fortunately the top answer doesn&amp;#x27;t suffer from that issue as far as I can tell. It is much longer and explains both the etymology of the terms and how they are used today.</text></item><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>Classic Stack Overflow, willfully ignores the likely intent of the questioner, with pedantic answers which ignore the most common modern usages of the terms.  Subtle condescension and authoritative declarations (“a console MUST be a piece of hardware”) which are actually incorrect in modern usage.&lt;p&gt;SO really does attract misanthropes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>basil-rash</author><text>That was already included in the question, there’s no use repeating it in the answer.</text></comment>