Shell Modes

It is possible to run a shell from within Emacs; there are a few different ways to do so. The easiest way is to type M-x shell. This creates a a buffer called *shell* with a shell prompt. Shell commands you type are sent to a system shell and the output displayed in the shell buffer. One thing you'll notice in shell mode is that the arrow keys move you around the buffer - they don't access command history as they do in most shells. To access command history, use M-p and M-n for previous and next, respectively.

One of the drawbacks of shell-mode is that it is not suitable for full-screen applications (like less, lynx, mutt or pine), to run these inside of Emacs, you need to use a terminal mode. Type M-x ansi-term, and specify which shell you would like to run (your default will be the shell you are using, e.g. /usr/pkg/bin/bash).

On platforms without an underlying shell (e.g., Windows), Emacs has a terminal emulator written entirely in Emacs Lisp. To enter it, type M-x eshell. While not suitable for full-screen applications, it does emulate a limited subset of shell features rather nicely. In this shell mode, the arrow keys work as you would expect, and most shell builtins and shell aliases work as well. Some external commands such as grep work, although input/output redirection is not yet implemented.

Here are the commands we discussed above: