Alternative windows shells

Deviants are kind enough to fave my themes (over 1,100 posted here) and I was honored with three Daily Deviations so far in my 20-year-old stay at deviantArt, but I still get the same response by people who are puzzled over my screenshots.“What is this?” they ask. “Is it a Windows style?” “How many apps do I need to have that interface?” or, the most common question, “What is Blackbox?” Just recently, a guy saw the screenshot of Storm, one of my latest themes, and asked, “What game is that?”Let’s face it, there are lots of people who never heard of Blackbox and they wonder what it is and how (and why) should they use it. And it's a good thing they show interest, because after a period of hibernation, due to many factors (mostly developers dropping out and, of course, the rise of Windows 10) Blackbox is back with a vengeance.Before I start talking about Blackbox, a little piece of history seems to be appropriate. A long time ago and in a galaxy far away, Windows were a slow, drab, lacking Operating System. So, a lot of different alternative shells were developed to make Windows more fast, more productive and, above all, more pretty.Alternative shells? What is a shell? Well, it's the dressing over a cake, the clothing over a body, the greenery covering a bush. Every operating system has a shell. It determines the way the OS looks and responds to the user. The Windows' native shell is Explorer, which is not only a file browser, like most of you may think. Delete Explorer and Windows crash. It was a good shell when Windows XP and 7 were around, but keeps deteriorating ever since. Windows 10 may be a better Operating System in some ways, but they took away something that is vital to us all: freedom of choice.As recently as 5 years back, we had a lot of alternative shells (about 30) to choose from and rice our desktops and/or get a faster computer response, making for Explorer's (and, thus, Windows') shortcomings. Litestep, Blackbox, Serenade, Talisman, Emerge, IceSphere, Reveal, Aston, WinStep, DesktopX, are just a few. Some of them, like Blackbox and Litestep, were free, while some others, like Aston and DesktopX, were commercial programs. Even Microsoft, knowing how inadequate Windows were, came up with their own alternative shell – E-Sense – so demanding (for its era)

Line compressor UHARC v0. It is a super compressor and integrates the Command line compressor UHARC v0.6b, created by Uwe Herklotz, into the Windows Shell. UHARC CMD is unique from other. UHARC GUI's in that it doesn't use any compiled source code to interface UHARC with the Windows Shell. It uses a set of batch scripts. The installer and UHARC CMD settings are compiled using... Category: Utilities / Misc. UtilitiesPublisher: By Sam Gleske, License: Freeware, Price: USD $0.00, File Size: 2.2 MBPlatform: Windows WOW64Menu allows using shell context menu of 32-bit applications on x64 editions of Windows. WOW64Menu allows using Shell context menu of 32-bit applications on x64 editions of Windows. It adds "Show WOW64 Menu" Command to context menu of objects on Desktop and in Windows Explorer. When choosing this Command a new context menu including 32-bit applications will be shown. Category: Software Development / Help File UtilitiesPublisher: Gasanov.net, License: Freeware, Price: USD $0.00, File Size: 300.0 KBPlatform: Windows This tool extends explorer with functionality of a command prompt. This tool extends explorer with functionality of a Command prompt. Implemented as a band object completely in C#. Demonstrates COM Interop and P/Invoke, Windows hooking and API interception. Finally you can run all these .Net SDK tools and ‘Hello World!’ programs without leaving explorer Shell. The most powerful is a... Category: Utilities / Misc. UtilitiesPublisher: Pavel Zolnikov, License: Freeware, Price: USD $0.00, File Size: 0Platform: Windows Squirrel Shell is a cross-platform alternative to system shells like sh in Unix-like systems and cmd. Squirrel Shell is a cross-platform alternative to system shells like sh in Unix-like systems and cmd.exe (Command.com) in Microsoft® Windows®. It is based on Squirrel scripting language which has these features: -object-oriented programming; -C -like syntax; -dynamic typing; -delegation; -generators; -exception handling;... Category: Software Development / Help File UtilitiesPublisher: Constantin, License: Shareware, Price: USD $0.00, File Size: 690.2 KBPlatform: Windows VanDyke ClientPack is a suite of tools for securely automating file transfer, shell, and public-key administration tasks. Secure automation increases compliance with security policies, saves time, and reduces potential human error. VanDyke ClientPack is a suite of tools for automating file transfer, Shell, and public-key administration tasks, saving you time on routine administration and configuration tasks. VRALib, a key component of the ClientPack, is a COM and .NET API that enables custom scripting of SSH2 connections in Windows. ClientPack Command-line utilities include: vsftp, an interactive... Category: Utilities /

That it ran only on Windows NT.And then came Windows 10 with a bang. Literally.Microsoft didn’t like the fact that there were alternative shells out there, offering more flexibility, more speed, more options, more pretty desktops and, yes, more choices to Windows users.So, Windows 10 changed all that by changing its code. It was no longer easy to tweak the registry and take command of the ship. No alternative shell could totally replace the native shell anymore.That meant the death of desktop freedom, the death of catholic interface options, the death of - yes, there you are again – choices.What’s worse, this monolithic, dreary, imagination-lacking Windows created and/or influenced a whole new bunch of young people who had never heard of customization outside the motor industry and were content with the plain, dowdy, graceless, prosaic world of this new Microsoft experiment. In short, the Windows of today are partially responsible for the lack of imagination and experimentation in the interface world. And, if we want to take this a step further, young people who don’t have a choice but follow MS’s anachronistic, dreary steps, are perhaps doomed to take this unadorned state of things to their work, their endeavors, their personal lives. Won’t take it so far as to suggest a conspiracy, but it’s obvious that MS was so anxious for this project to succeed, that for the first time ever they offered a Windows build for free. For home use, of course. Another hint.So, almost every alternative shell died. Except for Blackbox.Blackbox managed to survive by carrying the torch and offering a new site, hundreds of themes and, lately, a revolutionary new build that will be released soon.Which brings us back to the main question: what is Blackbox and how can I use it?Well, like I’ve said before, Blackbox is a shell for Windows or a window manager for Linux, the styles (themes) being interchangeable between the two platforms, something unique in computing. Blackbox for Windows is the more versatile of the two, since development of Blackbox for Linux has stopped many years ago.Here are just a few of the many things this shell can do:1) Colors and textures change on the fly with each style (theme) switch. No need to look around for third party apps that "look well" with or match each specific theme.2) Windows decorations are embedded in Blackbox' modus operandum and also offer colors and

Of the Linux Process.The four stages include: Waiting- The Linux process is waiting for the resourceRunning- The Linux process is currently runningStopped- The Linux process has been stopped after successful executionZombie- The Linux process is still active in the process table, but it has stopped. 5. How can you connect to a database server?To connect to a database server from Linux, use the isql utility that comes with the open client driver. Here is how:isql –S serverName –U username –P password6. Give the purpose of the shebang line.The shebang line is at the top of each script used to determine the engine's location and is used to execute the script. 7. Define Shell Variable.Shell variable forms the core part of a shell script or program. The variable allows the shell to manipulate the stored information within a shell program. It is generally stored as a string variable.8. How many kernels and shells are available in the UNIX environment?There can be multiple shells available, but there is only one kernel in the UNIX environment. 9. What is the alternative command for echo?The alternative command for echo is tput. This command allows us to control how the output is displayed on the screen. 10. What is a metacharacter?Metacharacter is a unique character included in a program or data field of a shell. It offers information about other characters. For example: to list all files beginning with character 's,' use the 'ls s*' command. Here are some intermediate level shell scripting interview questions!1.