Unix basics

The following is a small selection of introductory texts from Indiana University's Knowledge Base. You can also search for particular words or phrases throughout the entire Knowledge Base with the full-text search.

Contents

• Commands
• General
• System information
• Files and the file system
• Flavors and implementations
• Help

Commands

• Introduction to Unix commands
• In Unix, what is the man command, and how do I use it to read manual pages?
• In Unix, what do some obscurely named commands stand for?
• In Unix, how can I reissue a long command without retyping it?
• In Unix, how do I use the scp command to securely transfer files between two computers?
• In Unix, what is tar, and how do I use it?
• In Unix, how do I use the sort command?
• Unix job control command list
• In Unix, what do the output fields of the ps command mean?
• What is grep, and how do I use it?
• What is awk, and how do I use it?

For more information, search the Knowledge Base on man or grep, for example.

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General

• What is Unix?
• In Unix, how do I log into and out of my account?
• In Unix, how do I change my password?
• From a Unix account, how do I connect to another shared computer?
• In Unix, how do I print files and list or remove print jobs?
• In Unix, what is the shell?
• How do I use the vi text editor?
• What is the X Window System?
• In Unix, what is a disk quota?

For more information, search the Knowledge Base.

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System information

• In Unix, how can I display information about the operating system?
• In Unix, how do I check the CPU usage of a job?
• At IU, how do I configure my Unix workstation's DNS settings?
• In Unix, how can I check whether a networked computer has crashed?
• In Unix, how do I look up IP addresses?
• In Unix, how can I find the current values of all my environment variables and functions?
• In Unix, how can I display statistics on free disk space?
• In Unix, what is a daemon?
• In Unix, what is a group?
• In Unix, how can I find the correct path to an executable file?
• In Unix, what is my path, and how do I set or modify it?

For more information, search the Knowledge Base.

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Files and the file system

• What do some common Unix file extensions mean?
• In Unix, what are some common dot files?
• In Unix, how do I use filename completion?
• In Unix, what is a symbolic link, and how do I create one?
• In Unix, what is a hard link?
• In Unix, what is Ispell and how do I use it to spell-check files?
• In Unix, how can I display the first few lines of a file?
• In Unix, how can I display the last lines of a file?
• In Unix, how can I split large files into a number of smaller files?
• In Unix, what is a Makefile?
• At IU, who can recover files and email accidentally deleted from UITS central systems?

For more information, search the Knowledge Base.

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Flavors and implementations

• In Unix, what are Version 6 and Version 7?
• What are System V Unix and SVR4?
• What is BSD?
• About Linux
• What is Mac OS X?
• What is Darwin?
• What are SunOS and Solaris?
• What is HP-UX and where can I get it?
• What is IRIX?
• What is AIX?
• What are DEC OSF/1, Digital UNIX, and Tru64 UNIX?

For more information, search the Knowledge Base on linux, for example.

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Help

• For Unix, where can I find online tutorials?
• What books are available for Unix, and where can I find them?
• Where can I find information about Unix workstation security?
• For my personal Unix workstation, where can I download freeware, shareware, and public domain software?

For more information, search the Knowledge Base.

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