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NAME

       intro - introduction to user commands

DESCRIPTION

       Section  1 of the manual describes user commands and tools, for example, file manipulation
       tools, shells, compilers, web browsers, file and image viewers and editors, and so on.

NOTES

       Linux is a flavor of UNIX, and as a first approximation all user commands under UNIX  work
       precisely the same under Linux (and FreeBSD and lots of other UNIX-like systems).

       Under Linux, there are GUIs (graphical user interfaces), where you can point and click and
       drag, and hopefully get work done  without  first  reading  lots  of  documentation.   The
       traditional UNIX environment is a CLI (command line interface), where you type commands to
       tell the computer what to do.  That is faster and more powerful, but requires finding  out
       what the commands are.  Below a bare minimum, to get started.

   Login
       In  order  to  start  working,  you  probably  first have to open a session by giving your
       username and password.  The program login(1) now starts a shell (command interpreter)  for
       you.  In case of a graphical login, you get a screen with menus or icons and a mouse click
       will start a shell in a window.  See also xterm(1).

   The shell
       One types commands to the shell, the command interpreter.  It is not built-in, but is just
       a  program  and  you  can  change  your shell.  Everybody has their own favorite one.  The
       standard one is called sh.  See also ash(1), bash(1), chsh(1),  csh(1),  dash(1),  ksh(1),
       zsh(1).

       A session might go like:

           knuth login: aeb
           Password: ********
           $ date
           Tue Aug  6 23:50:44 CEST 2002
           $ cal
                August 2002
           Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                        1  2  3
            4  5  6  7  8  9 10
           11 12 13 14 15 16 17
           18 19 20 21 22 23 24
           25 26 27 28 29 30 31

           $ ls
           bin  tel
           $ ls -l
           total 2
           drwxrwxr-x   2 aeb       1024 Aug  6 23:51 bin
           -rw-rw-r--   1 aeb         37 Aug  6 23:52 tel
           $ cat tel
           maja    0501-1136285
           peter   0136-7399214
           $ cp tel tel2
           $ ls -l
           total 3
           drwxr-xr-x   2 aeb       1024 Aug  6 23:51 bin
           -rw-r--r--   1 aeb         37 Aug  6 23:52 tel
           -rw-r--r--   1 aeb         37 Aug  6 23:53 tel2
           $ mv tel tel1
           $ ls -l
           total 3
           drwxr-xr-x   2 aeb       1024 Aug  6 23:51 bin
           -rw-r--r--   1 aeb         37 Aug  6 23:52 tel1
           -rw-r--r--   1 aeb         37 Aug  6 23:53 tel2
           $ diff tel1 tel2
           $ rm tel1
           $ grep maja tel2
           maja    0501-1136285
           $

       Here typing Control-D ended the session.

       The $ here was the command prompt—it is the shell's way of indicating that it is ready for
       the next command.  The prompt can be customized in lots of ways,  and  one  might  include
       stuff  like  username,  machine  name,  current directory, time, and so on.  An assignment
       PS1="What next, master? " would change the prompt as indicated.

       We see that there are commands date (that gives date and time),  and  cal  (that  gives  a
       calendar).

       The  command  ls  lists  the contents of the current directory—it tells you what files you
       have.  With a -l option it gives a long listing, that includes the owner and size and date
       of  the  file,  and the permissions people have for reading and/or changing the file.  For
       example, the file "tel" here is 37 bytes long, owned by aeb and the  owner  can  read  and
       write  it,  others can only read it.  Owner and permissions can be changed by the commands
       chown and chmod.

       The command cat will show the contents of a file.  (The  name  is  from  "concatenate  and
       print":  all files given as parameters are concatenated and sent to "standard output" (see
       stdout(3)), here the terminal screen.)

       The command cp (from "copy") will copy a file.

       The command mv (from "move"), on the other hand, only renames it.

       The command diff lists the differences between  two  files.   Here  there  was  no  output
       because there were no differences.

       The  command  rm  (from  "remove")  deletes  the  file,  and  be  careful! it is gone.  No
       wastepaper basket or anything.  Deleted means lost.

       The command grep (from "g/re/p") finds occurrences of a string in one or more files.  Here
       it finds Maja's telephone number.

   Pathnames and the current directory
       Files  live  in a large tree, the file hierarchy.  Each has a pathname describing the path
       from the root of the tree (which is called /) to the  file.   For  example,  such  a  full
       pathname  might  be /home/aeb/tel.  Always using full pathnames would be inconvenient, and
       the name of a file in the current directory may be abbreviated by  giving  only  the  last
       component.  That is why /home/aeb/tel can be abbreviated to tel when the current directory
       is /home/aeb.

       The command pwd prints the current directory.

       The command cd changes the current directory.

       Try alternatively cd and pwd commands and explore cd usage: "cd", "cd .", "cd ..", "cd /",
       and "cd ~".

   Directories
       The command mkdir makes a new directory.

       The command rmdir removes a directory if it is empty, and complains otherwise.

       The  command  find (with a rather baroque syntax) will find files with given name or other
       properties.  For example, "find . -name tel" would find  the  file  tel  starting  in  the
       present  directory  (which  is  called  .).  And "find / -name tel" would do the same, but
       starting at the root of the tree.  Large  searches  on  a  multi-GB  disk  will  be  time-
       consuming, and it may be better to use locate(1).

   Disks and filesystems
       The  command  mount  will attach the filesystem found on some disk (or floppy, or CDROM or
       so) to the big filesystem hierarchy.  And umount detaches it again.  The command  df  will
       tell you how much of your disk is still free.

   Processes
       On  a  UNIX  system  many  user  and system processes run simultaneously.  The one you are
       talking to runs in the foreground, the others in the background.  The command ps will show
       you  which  processes  are active and what numbers these processes have.  The command kill
       allows you to get rid of them.  Without option this is a friendly request: please go away.
       And  "kill  -9"  followed  by  the number of the process is an immediate kill.  Foreground
       processes can often be killed by typing Control-C.

   Getting information
       There are thousands of commands, each  with  many  options.   Traditionally  commands  are
       documented on man pages, (like this one), so that the command "man kill" will document the
       use of the command "kill" (and "man man" document the command  "man").   The  program  man
       sends  the text through some pager, usually less.  Hit the space bar to get the next page,
       hit q to quit.

       In documentation it is customary to refer to man pages by  giving  the  name  and  section
       number,  as  in man(1).  Man pages are terse, and allow you to find quickly some forgotten
       detail.  For newcomers an introductory text with more examples and explanations is useful.

       A lot of GNU/FSF  software  is  provided  with  info  files.   Type  "info  info"  for  an
       introduction on the use of the program info.

       Special  topics  are  often  treated in HOWTOs.  Look in /usr/share/doc/howto/en and use a
       browser if you find HTML files there.

SEE ALSO

       ash(1), bash(1), chsh(1), csh(1), dash(1), ksh(1), locate(1), login(1), man(1),  xterm(1),
       zsh(1), wait(2), stdout(3), man-pages(7), standards(7)