AACS2284 OPERATING S

YSTEMS (PRACTI

Practical 2 – Managing Files in Linux System

Section A
At current location (e.g /home/student), perform the following operations:
1. Show the current path.
pwd

2. Create a directory “p2”.

mkdir p2

3. Give two commands which can list all the contents at the current directory.
ls -a

dir -a

4. Create a directory “super” inside the directory “p2”.

cd p2

mkdir super // mkdir p2/super

5. Inside this “super” directory, create four files “apple.doc”, “april.doc”, “box.txt” and
“boxes.txt” using touch command.
cd super

touch apple.doc april.doc box.doc boxes.doc

6. (a) Show the file(s) starting with “ap”.

ls ap*
(b) Show the file(s) that the length of the filename contains 5 characters.
ls ?????
(c) Show the file(s) ending with “txt” extension.
ls *.txt
(d) Show the file(s) that the third character of the filename is “p”.
ls ??p*
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7. Go to root directory.
/

8. Search a directory named “super” from the root directory.

find / -name super

9. Search a file named “ultra.txt” from the root directory.

find / -name ultra.txt

10. Rename the file “ultra.txt” to “mega.txt”

cd ~/p2/super (replace the home/student in cd home/student/p2/super with ~)

mv ultra.txt mega.txt

11. Copy “super” directory to home directory and rename it to “super2” in one command line.
cp -r p2/super ~/super2

12. Confirm whether “super2” directory is created and copied.

cd ~

ls

13. Remove “super” and all its subdirectories and files.

rm -r ~/p2/super

14. Go back to directory “p2”. Create a text file “sampleA.txt” using vi command.
cd ~/p2

cat > sampleA.txt // vi sampleA.txt

15. Type the following contents into “sampleA.txt” and save the file.
“The shell is a program that takes keyboard commands and passes them to the operating
system to carry out. Almost all Linux distributions supply a shell program from the GNU
Project called bash.”

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wq!

16. Create another text file “sampleB.txt” using cat command.

cat > sampleB.txt

17. Type the following contents into “sampleB.txt” and save the file.
“When using a graphical user interface, we need another program called a terminal
emulator to interact with the shell.”
Control+D or Control+C

18. Open “sampleB.txt” again using vi command and add the following sentences.
“It’s likely called simply “terminal”.”
cat > sampleB.txt // vi sample.txt
It’s likely called simply “terminal”. // wq!

19. Show the word count of “sampleB.txt”

wc sampleB.txt

20. Combine the two files “sampleA.txt” and “sampleB.txt” to a file named “sampleC.txt”.
cat sampleA.txt sampleB.txt > sampleC.txt

21. Show the content of “sampleC.txt” on the terminal.

cat sampleC.txt

22. Archive “sampleA.txt” and “sampleB.txt” to “sampleC.tar”

tar -c -f sampleC.tar sampleA.txt sampleB.txt

23. Overwrite “sampleB.txt” by “sampleA.txt” and show the content of both files on the
terminal.
cat sampleA.txt > sampleB.txt
cat sampleA.txt sampleB.txt

24. Delete the file “sampleB.txt”.

rm sampleB.txt

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25. Go back to home directory and create a new directory named “backup”.
cd ~
mkdir backup

26. Backup “sampleA.txt” and “sampleC.txt” to “backup” directory. (backup is copy)

cp ~/p2/*.txt ~/backup

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Section B True/False.
Explain the answer if it is false.

True/False
1. The structure of the file system in Linux can be depicted in a True
form of tree. It begins at the root (/), and branches out like the
branches of a tree.

2. A relative path starting from the current directory while an True

absolute path starting from the root of the entire file system
tree.

3. When the terminal is opened the starting directory is the root (/) False
directory. ans: home directory

4. /etc directory in Linux is similar to Control Panel in WINDOWS. True

5. Windows separates directories using forward slash (“/”) while False

LINUX uses back slash (“\”). ans: LINUX uses forward
slash
6. LINUX is non-case sensitive while WINDOWS is. False
ans: LINUX is case
sensitive
7. Windows uses a volume-based file hierarchy (e.g. C: volume, D: True
volume) while LINUX uses a unified scheme (e.g. /, /home, /etc).

8. .tar is a text file extension in LINUX system. False

ans: .tar is an archived file
9. LINUX uses color to differentiate the files and folder/directory. False
Blue is for executable file, Green is for directory. ans: Blue is for directory
and Green is for
executable file
10. Lossless compression preserves all the data after compression True
while lossy compression drops some information after
compression.

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Section C

1. Write commands for the following instructions by using the vi editor:

a. Create a document called first.file, and enter 4 lines of words “today” and save it.
b. Copy the first 4 lines using only one command
c. Save the file, and exit vi
d. Create a second document called second.file, and enter 4 lines of words “yesterday” and save it.
e. Create a third document called third.file, by merging the text from the first two files.
f. Save the third.file and exit from the editor

1a. vi first.file
press i or o or a or R to switch into input mode to insert the word “today” for 4 lines/rows
press Esc to switch back to command mode
:w

1b. in command mode,

press -> 4yy
press -> P or p

1c. in command mode, press :wq or :x

1d. vi second file

press i or o or a or R to switch into input mode to insert the word “yesterday” for 4
lines/rows
press Esc to switch back to command mode
:wq

1e. vi third.file
in command mode,
press :r first.file
then move the cursor to the last line
press :r second file

1f. :wq or :x

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2. Using vi command, create a new file called “sonnet” that contains the first four lines of the
Shakespeare’s 80th Sonnet.

O, how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise therefore spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your frame

a. Replace all occurrences of the word “the” with “a”

b. Select 5 words, and convert them to all uppercase
c. Delete a line, and then undo the deletion
d. Enter the command that causes line numbers to appear
e. Save the file and exit vi editor

2a. :1,$s/the/a/g
OR
:1,$s/the/a/g
OR
:%s/the/a/g

2b. in command mode, press

v5w shift + u

2c. dd
U
2d. :set nu OR :set number

2e. :wq OR :x