Basic Unix commands and Sun use info

Definitions

• A path or fully qualified path is the prefix to a filename. Say, for instance, that I want to list the contents of a directory in my home directory called cheese, I type: ls cheese/. A directory inside cheese/ would be cheese/green/. If I wanted to specify a directory from the top of the filesystem directory tree, I put a leading / on the directory to make it a fully qualified path like so: ls /usr/local/bin/ .
• A shell is the interactive command line interpreter to Unix. Typically you will have a prompt that looks like % or ~%. Usually you will see it in an xterm, which looks like a small terminal window.

Shell commands

• man command: displays the Unix man pages for command. Of course, these pages are meant for people who already know Unix, so you will probably find them unreadable at first...still, it's how everyone has to start. The man pages are also available on a web page. There is also tutorial-style Unix Help, which is slightly more novice-friendly.
• ls, ls -a, ls -l, ls -la, etc. : lists the files in your current working directory for that shell. Try each alternative to see what they do. Read the man page for more information.
• cd directory : changes the current working directory to directory where directory may be a path or a fully qualified path (q.v.). A ~ indicates your home directory. ~bob indicates the home directory of bob. Read the man page for more information.
• rm filename : removes the file filename, where filename may be the name of a file, a path, or a fully qualified path. Read the man page for more information.
• cp source destination : copies the file source to the file destination where source and destination may be file names, paths, or fully qualified paths. Read the man page for more information.
• mv source destination : the same as cp, but it moves the source file instead of copying it - after the operation source will no longer exist. Read the man page for more information.
• chmod mode filename : changes the permissions for letting yourself and other people access your files. Read the man page for more information.

Basic Utilities

• Printing: the lpr command is the basic printing command. In your shell, type: lpr -Pprintername filename to print the file filename to the printer specified in printername. If you omit -Pprintername, lpr will print to your default printer which is the asprey lab printer. The intro lab printer is comsc1. There is no space between the -P and printername, for example lpr -Pcomsc1 proj1.C
• File compression: gzip filename will compress the file filename and give it the .gz name extension. gzip -d filename.gz or gunzip filename.gz will decompress the file and remove the .gz extension.
• Email: Email can get very complicated, but the most common problem people run into is trying to mail a file to a professor. this is easily accomplished from your shell by typing: mail ProfEmailAddress < filename
• Vax mail: you can get your mail at the vax by typing: telnet vaxsar in an xterm shell.

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