LINUX BASICS

CDAC Mumbai

Introduction to Linux
The Linux operating system (OS) was
first coded by a Finnish computer
programmer called Linus Benedict
Torvalds in 1991, when he was just
21! He had got a new 386, and he
found the existing DOS and UNIX too
expensive and inadequate.
As a hobby he decided to build his own
tiny OS
In those days, a UNIX-like tiny, free OS
called Minix was extensively used for
academic purposes. Since its source
code was available, Linus decided to
take Minix as a model.

GNU PROJECT

Established in 1984 by Richard Stallman, who believes that

software should be free from restrictions against copying or
modification in order to make better and efficient computer
programs
GNU is a recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix
Aim at developing a complete Unix-like operating
system which is free for copying and modification
Companies make their money by maintaining and
distributing the software, e.g. optimally packaging the
software with different tools (Redhat, Slackware,
Mandrake, SuSE, etc)
Stallman built the first free GNU C Compiler in 1991.
But still, an OS was yet to be developed
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Introduction to Linux
Linus liked the endeavours of the Free Software Foundation
and released his kernel under the GNU GPL
The Linux kernel and GNU tools made a complete, free
operating system: the GNU/Linux operating system
Linux most commonly distributed with the toolset & collection of
application called as distributions.(Redhat, Fedora, Ubuntu,
Mandrake etc)
The largest part of the work on Linux is performed by the
community: the thousands of programmers around the world that
use Linux and send their suggested improvements to the
maintainers.
Various companies have also helped not only with the
development of the Kernels, but also with the writing of the body
of auxiliary software, which is distributed with Linux.
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WHY LINUX ?

A Linux distribution has software worth thousands of dollars, for

virtually no cost
Linux operating system is reliable, stable, and very powerful

Linux comes with a complete development environment, including

compilers, toolkits, and scripting languages

Linux comes with networking facilities, allowing you to share

hardware

Linux utilizes your memory, CPU, and other hardware to the fullest

A wide variety of commercial software is also available

Linux is very easily upgradeable

Supports multiple processors as standard

True multitasking. So many apps, all at once

FILE SYSTEM OF LINUX

The

Linux File system is organized

hierarchically.

LINUX FILE SYSTEM

Some important directories are

/bin contains commonly used commands.
/usr/bin contains less commonly used commands.
/mnt provides a location for mounting devices.
/etc contains system administration commands.
/dev contains device files.
/usr contains users directories
/opt addon application software packages.

LINUX FILE SYSTEM

/proc processor related files.

/home This is where user home directories are stored.
/root This is the root (administrator) user's home directory
/sbin Binaries which are only expected to be used by the
super user.
/tmp Temporary files.
/boot Has the bootable Linux kernel and boot loader
configuration files(GRUB).
/var This directory is used to store files which change
frequently
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BASIC LINUX COMMANDS

File Handling
Text Processing
System Administration
Process Management
Archival
File Systems

SOURCES TO LEARN COMMANDS??

Primary man(manual) pages.
man <command> shows all information about the
command
<command> help shows the available options for that
command
Secondary Books and Internet

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FILE HANDLING COMMANDS

mkdir make directories

rmdir remove directory

Usage: ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...

eg. ls, ls l, ls prabhat

cd changes directories

eg. rmdir prabhat

ls list directory contents

Usage: mkdir [OPTION] DIRECTORY...

eg. mkdir prabhat

Usage: cd [DIRECTORY]
eg. cd prabhat

pwd print name of current working directory

Usage: pwd

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FILE HANDLING COMMANDS(CONTD)

cp copy files and directories

mv move (rename) files

Usage: cp [OPTION]... SOURCE DEST

eg. cp sample.txt sample_copy.txt
cp sample_copy.txt target_dir

Usage: mv [OPTION]... SOURCE DEST

eg. mv source.txt target_dir
mv old.txt new.txt

rm remove files or directories

Usage: rm [OPTION]... FILE...

eg. rm file1.txt , rm -rf some_dir
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FILE HANDLING COMMANDS(CONTD)

find search for files in a directory hierarchy

Usage: find [OPTION] [path] [pattern]

eg. find file1.txt find name file1.txt

history prints recently used commands

Usage: history

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TEXT PROCESSING COMMANDS

cat concatenate files and print on the standard output

echo display a line of text

Usage: cat [OPTION] [FILE]...

eg. cat file1.txt file2.txt
cat -n file1.txt

Usage: echo [OPTION] [string] ...

eg. echo I love India
echo $HOME

grep print lines matching a pattern

Usage: grep [OPTION] PATTERN [FILE]...

eg. grep i apple sample.txt

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TEXT PROCESSING COMMANDS (CONTD)

wc print the number of newlines, words, and

bytes in files

Usage: wc [OPTION]... [FILE]...

eg. wc file1.txt
wc -l file1.txt

sort sort lines of text files

Usage: sort [OPTION]... [FILE]...

eg. sort file1.txt
sort r file1.txt
-r reverses the result
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LINUX FILE PERMISSIONS

3 types of file permissions read, write, execute

10 bit format from 'ls -l command

1
234
567

file type

owner

group

8 9 10

others

eg. drwxrw-r-means owner has all three permissions, group has

read and write, others have only read permission
read permission 4, write 2, execute 1

eg. rwxrw-r-- = 764

673 = rw-rwx-wx
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SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION

chmod change file access permissions

chown change file owner and group

Usage: chmod [OPTION] [MODE] [FILE]

eg. chmod 744 calculate.sh
Usage: chown [OPTION]... OWNER[:[GROUP]] FILE...
eg. chown remo myfile.txt

su change user ID or become superuser

Usage: su [OPTION] [LOGIN]

eg. su remo, su

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SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION( CONTD)

passwd update a users authentication tokens(s)

Usage: passwd [OPTION]

eg. passwd

who show who is logged on

Usage: who [OPTION]
eg. who

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PROCESS MANAGEMENT

ps report a snapshot of the current processes

Usage: ps [OPTION]
eg. ps, ps el

Top - Show system usage statistics

kill to kill a process(using signal mechanism)

Usage: kill [OPTION] pid

eg. kill -9 2275

killall - Stop a program. The program is specified by

command name.
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ARCHIVAL COMMANDS

tar to archive a file

zip package and compress (archive) files

Usage: tar [OPTION] DEST SOURCE

eg. tar -cvf /home/archive.tar /home/original
tar -xvf /home/archive.tar

Usage: zip [OPTION] DEST SOURSE

eg. zip original.zip original

unzip list, test and extract compressed files in a

ZIP archive

Usage: unzip filename

eg. unzip original.zip

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FILE SYSTEM COMMANDS

fdisk partition manipulator

mount mount a file system

eg. sudo fdisk -l

Usage: mount -t type device dir
eg. mount /dev/sda5 /media/target

umount unmount file systems

Usage: umount [OPTIONS] dir | device...

eg. umount /media/target

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FILE SYSTEM COMMANDS(CONTD)

du estimate file space usage

Usage: du [OPTION]... [FILE]...

eg. du

df report filesystem disk space usage

Usage: df [OPTION]... [FILE]...

eg. df

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LINUX COMMAND SUMMARY

Command

Function

Example

ls

To see the files in the directory

ls

ls -l

display details of the files such as

permissions, size date of last update

ls -l

ls -a

To list hidden files

ls -a

cat

To display contens of one or more

files

cat hello

cp

Copy file1 to file2

cp file1 file2i

rm or rm-i

To delete a file

rm hello

mv

To rename a file

mv hello mytextfile

head

To display top 10 lines of the file

Head hello

tail

To display bottom 10 lines of file

tail hello

wc

To display number of lines,words &

characters in a file

wc hello

To display file with line numbers

nl hello

nl

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LINUX COMMAND SUMMARY

Command

Function

Example

pwd

To know the present working directory pwd

cd

To change directory, you can specify

either relative or absolute path

cd /etc , cd ..
cd ./cprograms

mkdir

To create a new directory

mkdir hello, mkdir

/usr/prasad/hello

rmdir

To delete a directory

rmdir hello

find

To search for file

find hello

du

To know the directory size in number

of blocks

du prasad

df

To know the disk space occupied by

the total file system

df

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INPUT / OUTPUT REDIRECTION

In linux all devices are considered as files,

hence we have three standard files

Stdin
Stdout
Stderr

file desc. 0
file desc. 1
file desc. 2

Input is given through the keyboard, called

standard i/p: stdin
Output is displayed on the monitor, called
standard o/p: stdout
The error messages are also displayed on the
monitor, called standard error: stderr
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INPUT / OUTPUT REDIRECTION

Instead of taking input from the keyboard, you can

take the i/p from a file known as input indirection.
$wc < filename (< input indirection)
Similarly, the o/p can be redirected to a file instead of
monitor.
$ls -l > filelist (> output redirection)
$cat filelist
you can combine both input indirection & o/p
redirection in one command
$wc <file1 > file2
$cat file2>>file1 (can append a file to another file)
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VI EDITOR

To create text files or C/C++ programs, you need a text editor.

The most commonly used editors are ed , Vi, vim etc.

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STARTING VIM

You may use vim to open an already existing file by typing

vim filename
vim has three modes:
command mode
insert mode
Colon mode(Ex Command Mode)
In command mode, the letters of the keyboard perform editing
functions (like moving the cursor, deleting text, etc.).
To enter command mode, press the escape <Esc> key. In
insert mode, the letters you type form words and sentences.
To enter Ex-command mode Press esc and :

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Entering Text

In order to begin entering text in this empty file, you must

change from command mode to insert mode. To do this,
type i

Deleting Words

To delete a word, move the cursor to the first letter of the

word, and type
dw
This command deletes the word and the space following it.
To delete three words type

3dw
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Deleting Lines

To delete a whole line, type

dd
Typing dd deletes the entire line containing the cursor
and places the cursor at the start of the next line.
To delete two lines, type

2dd

To delete from the cursor position to the end of the line, type

D (uppercase)
Moving around in a file

H to top line of screen

M to middle line of screen
L to last line of screen
G to last line of file
1G to first line of file

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Moving by Searching
To move quickly by searching for text, while in
command mode:

Type / (slash).
Enter the text to search for.
Press <Return>.

The cursor moves to the first occurrence of that text.

To repeat the search in a forward direction, type

n
To repeat the search in a backward direction, type
N

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To save the edits you have made, but leave vim

running and your file open:

Press <Esc>.
Type :w
Press <Return>.

To quit vim, and discard any changes your have made

since last saving:

Press <Esc>.
Type :q!
Press <Return>.

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