UNIX Tutorial for Beginners
History of UNIX :
UNIX was originally developed at Bell Laboratories as a private research project by a small group of people. Read all about the history of its creation.
Typographical conventions
In what follows, we shall use the following typographical conventions:
· Characters written in bold typewriter font are commands to be typed into the computer as they stand.
· Characters written in italic typewriter font indicate non-specific file or directory names.
· Words inserted within square brackets [Ctrl] indicate keys to be pressed.
So, for example,
% ls anydirectory [Enter]
means "at the UNIX prompt %, type ls followed by the name of some directory, then press the key marked Enter"
Don't forget to press the [Enter] key: commands are not sent to the computer until this is done.
Note: UNIX is case-sensitve, so LS is not the same as ls. The same applies to filenames, so myfile.txt, MyFile.txt and MYFILE.TXT are three seperate files. Beware if copying files to a PC, since DOS and Windows do not make this distinction.
UNIX Introduction
This session concerns UNIX, which is a common operating system. By operating system, we mean the suite of programs which make the computer work. UNIX is used by the workstations and multi-user servers within the school.
On X terminals and the workstations, X Windows provide a graphical interface between the user and UNIX. However, knowledge of UNIX is required for operations which aren't covered by a graphical program, or for when there is no X windows system, for example, in a telnet session.
The UNIX operating system
The UNIX operating system is made up of three parts; the kernel, the shell and the programs.
The kernel
The kernel of UNIX is the hub of the operating system: it allocates time and memory to programs and handles the filestore and communications in response to system calls.
As an illustration of the way that the shell and the kernel work together, suppose a user types rm myfile (which has the effect of removing the file myfile). The shell searches the filestore for the file containing the program rm, and then requests the kernel, through system calls, to execute the program rm on myfile. When the process rm myfile has finished running, the shell then returns the UNIX prompt % to the user, indicating that it is waiting for further commands.
UNIX was originally developed at Bell Laboratories as a private research project by a small group of people. Read all about the history of its creation.
Typographical conventions
In what follows, we shall use the following typographical conventions:
· Characters written in bold typewriter font are commands to be typed into the computer as they stand.
· Characters written in italic typewriter font indicate non-specific file or directory names.
· Words inserted within square brackets [Ctrl] indicate keys to be pressed.
So, for example,
% ls anydirectory [Enter]
means "at the UNIX prompt %, type ls followed by the name of some directory, then press the key marked Enter"
Don't forget to press the [Enter] key: commands are not sent to the computer until this is done.
Note: UNIX is case-sensitve, so LS is not the same as ls. The same applies to filenames, so myfile.txt, MyFile.txt and MYFILE.TXT are three seperate files. Beware if copying files to a PC, since DOS and Windows do not make this distinction.
UNIX Introduction
This session concerns UNIX, which is a common operating system. By operating system, we mean the suite of programs which make the computer work. UNIX is used by the workstations and multi-user servers within the school.
On X terminals and the workstations, X Windows provide a graphical interface between the user and UNIX. However, knowledge of UNIX is required for operations which aren't covered by a graphical program, or for when there is no X windows system, for example, in a telnet session.
The UNIX operating system
The UNIX operating system is made up of three parts; the kernel, the shell and the programs.
The kernel
The kernel of UNIX is the hub of the operating system: it allocates time and memory to programs and handles the filestore and communications in response to system calls.
As an illustration of the way that the shell and the kernel work together, suppose a user types rm myfile (which has the effect of removing the file myfile). The shell searches the filestore for the file containing the program rm, and then requests the kernel, through system calls, to execute the program rm on myfile. When the process rm myfile has finished running, the shell then returns the UNIX prompt % to the user, indicating that it is waiting for further commands.
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