The Python shell you get with IDLE is actually not a system shell like cmd.exe or sh, bsh, csh etc. It is a shell that allows the Python interpreter to evaluate each line of Python code as you type.
This is why when you type 'hello.py' it tells you 'hello.py' is not defined. On a higher level it simply tells you: you haven't initialized this object called hello.py in memory and therefore the error. Also you can't run python anything because in the interpreter python *hasn't* been assigned any value. Also, you can't quit the Python interpreter shell by typing exit. You'll need to do a Control-D & Enter ;-) Hope this makes sense. Good luck. Harlin Seritt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list