CHAPTER 1 –

INTRODUCING UNIX
NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem
 1.1 The Operating System
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 A software that manages the hardware and

provides the environment for programs to run
 Manages computer resources
 Acts as a control program

 Provides an interface to the user

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.1 The Operating System (continued)
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How a Program Runs on a Computer:

 OS Allocates memory and loads the program in it.
 loads the CPU registers with control information.
 OS keeps track of the executed instruction.
 OS access hardware on behalf of the program.
 OS saves the state of the program if the program
has to leave CPU temporarily.
 After the program has completed execution, the
OS cleans up the memory and registers and
makes them available for the next program.
NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem
 1.1 The Operating System (continued)
4

Modern OS are:
1. multiprogramming

 Allows multiple programs to reside in memory at the

same time
2. multiuser
 It allows the machine to serve multiple users
3. multitasking
 a single user can run multiple programs

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.2 UNIX Operating System
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 Written in C. It is not assembler.

 portable

 offers a rich set of programming tools to aid in

developing, debugging, and maintaining programs.
 One of these program is the command’s interpreter,
called the shell
 Interaction with UNIX system is through the shell.

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.3 Knowing your Machine
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 Unlike Windows, UNIX can used by many users

concurrently
 Users can use dumb terminals or their PC’s to access a
central UNIX computer
 You can have a standalone UNIX machine. However,
you are often connected to a large, more powerful
computer
 Why?
 It is administered properly (backup, security, …)
 Has more Powerful processing and memory

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.4 The System administrator
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 On a large system serving hundreds of users,

someone has to be in-charge of administering the
system.
 Responsible for the management of the entire
setup.
 allocating user accounts, maintain file systems, and
perform several other important functions.
 If you run some flavor of UNIX on your machine,
then you are probably its administrator.

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.7 Unix Variants
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 BSD, Free BSD from Berkley Software Design

 SunOS and Solaris from Sun Microsystems
 AIX from IBM
 HP-UX from HP
 Tru64 UNIX from DEC
 IRIX from Silicon Graphics
 MAC OS X from Apple
 Linux and other Open Source variants

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.8 POSIX
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 Absence of a single conforming standard

affected the development of portable
applications.
 The Portable Operating System Interface for
Computer Environment (POSIX) was developed
by IEEE
 refers to OS in general, but was based on UNIX

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.9 Linux and GNU
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 Linux is free and distributed under the GNU

General Public License
 Most popular flavors: Ubuntu, Fedora, ….
 Can be downloaded free
 Try to install a copy on your machine.

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.10 The UNIX Architecture
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 Kernel
 Shell
 File and Process
 System Calls

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 The kernel
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 Interacts with the machine’s hardware

 It is the core of the OS
 User’s applications communicate with the kernel via
system calls in order to access the hardware
 Only one copy shared by all users.

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 The shell
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 Commands Interpreter
 Invoked only when the user logs in.
 Responsible for executing user commands
 One kernel – several shells
 Examines the keyboard input (command) for special
characters prior to communicating with the kernel

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 The File and Process
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 Files
 Containers for storing static information
 Directories and devices are also files
 Files are related to other files by being a part of single
hierarchical structure called file system
 Process
 A program in execution
 Dynamic – resembles living organisms (born and die)
 Also forms hierarchy – when a process is a child of another
process
 UNIX provides tools to control processes
 move them between foreground and background
 or kill them

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 The System Calls
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 Programs access the kernel services by invoking

special functions called system calls
 C programmers can not use system call on Windows
system; instead Windows system use the standard
library functions for everything
 In UNIX, users have access to both.

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 The UNIX Architecture- Summary
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 Everything in the system is represented as a file.

 Work gets done by processes.
 Workload is shared by two separate programs
(kernel and shell).
 Kernel uses system calls to do most of the work.
 All UNIX systems use the same system calls.

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.11 Features of UNIX
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1. A multiuser system
 These programs can be run by different users
 Kernel uses the principle of time sharing

2. A multitasking system
 A user can edit a file, print another one, send email to a friend, and
browse WWW – without leaving any of the applications

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.11 Features of UNIX (cont.)
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3. Repository of Applications
 Host of applications shipped with UNIX system
 New tools are being added

4. The Building block

 shell offers a mechanism called the pipe that allows the
output of one command to server as input to another
 Explains why most commands are NOT interactive

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 1.11 Features of UNIX (cont.)
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5. Pattern Matching
 Use special characters to match a number of characters

6. Programming Facility
 These features are used to design shell scripts

7. Documentation
 The online help facility – man commands

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 Connecting via a UNIX Terminal
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 From your terminal( you should have a network

connection to the server) enter
 IP address of the UNIX server (or hostname)
 Then you got a screen to fill your username and
password
login: your_username <Enter>
password: your_password <Enter>
$
 Now you are ready to enter commands.
 The symbol $ is the shell symbol, it might be different on your system

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 A Hands-On Session (simple commands)
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 UNIX is case sensitive; and commands are generally in

lowercase; so date and DATE are not the same
 Every UNIX system maintains an internal clock; you can access
it with a single command named date:
 $ date

 View the list of current users with the who

 $ who

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 A Hands-On Session (simple commands)
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 Deleting files with rm

 $rm foo.sh
 Creating directories with mkdir
 $mkdir scripts
 Try the command ls –F and explain the resulting output
 copy files inside directories
 $cp foo scripts
 Directory navigation with cd and pwd
 $pwd
 $cd scripts
 $pwd

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem

 A Hands-On Session (simple commands)
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 Display file content with cat

 $ cat foo
 Copying files with cp
 $cp foo foo.sh
 Deleting files with rm
 $rm foo.sh
 Creating directories with mkdir
 $mkdir scripts
 Try the command ls –F and explain the resulting output
 copy files inside directories
 $cp foo scripts
 Directory navigation with cd and pwd
 $pwd
 $cd scripts
 $pwd
 $ls
 $cd /home

NES 202 : Introduction to UNIX, Done By : Eng. Rana AlQurem