Linux 'terminal' is actually not a terminal

      Linux 'terminal' is actually not a terminal.!


The abundantly used 'Terminal' in Linux/Unix is actually not a terminal. The modern day 'Terminal' is actually a pseudo terminal, or an emulator to be precise, where you can execute your commands.

A terminal, historically, was a device connected to a computing system over a serial connector. The modern systems have emulators with a GUI.

The actual definitions are as below, they are interconnected, but different, terms:

1. Terminal: A special kernel-provided device that handles textual input/output and supports the backbone of job control. It works with the keyboard and display drivers to read keystrokes and write to the screen. 
2. Terminal window: A GUI window with nothing but a text terminal inside it. Usually synonymous with a terminal emulator. 
3. Console: The control panel where you sit and do stuff. Very general term and means very different things to very different kinds of people. In this context, it usually means the physical terminal you use to connect to a computer, i.e. the screen and keyboard. 
4. Terminal emulator: A program who acts like a real terminal, but it isn’t. Sometimes called pseudo-terminals. GUI-based terminals, like kterminal and xterm, are usually emulators. 
5. Command line: Line of text entered by the user (or script) at the shell prompt to instruct the shell to perform a certain action (s). It can also mean the interface provided by the shell so the user can enter commands. 
6. Shell: A shell language interpreter. A sophisticated user program that provides a clean interface with the underlying terminal, gives the user a way to input commands, enables job control, among other functions. 

7. Shell prompt: A string or message output by the shell every time it is ready to receive user input.

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