1 Unix Basic commands

Basic UNIX commands

Note: not all of these are actually part of UNIX itself, and you may not
find them on all UNIX machines. But they

can all be used on turing in essentially the same way, by typing the
command and hitting return. Note that some of

these commands are different on non-Solaris machines - see SunOS

differences.
If you've made a typo, the easiest thing to do is hit CTRL-u to cancel
the whole line. But you can also edit the

command line (see the guide to More UNIX).

UNIX is case-sensitive.
Files

* ls --- lists your files

ls -l --- lists your files in 'long format', which contains lots of useful
information, e.g. the exact size of

the file, who owns the file and who has the right to look at it, and
when it was last modified.
ls -a --- lists all files, including the ones whose filenames begin in a
dot, which you do not always want to

see.
There are many more options, for example to list files by size, by
date, recursively etc.
* more filename --- shows the first part of a file, just as much as will
fit on one screen. Just hit the space

bar to see more or q to quit. You can use /pattern to search for a
pattern.
* emacs filename --- is an editor that lets you create and edit a file.
See the emacs page.

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* mv filename1 filename2 --- moves a file (i.e. gives it a different
name, or moves it into a different

directory (see below)

* cp filename1 filename2 --- copies a file
* rm filename --- removes a file. It is wise to use the option rm -i,
which will ask you for confirmation before

actually deleting anything. You can make this your default by making
an alias in your .cshrc file.
* diff filename1 filename2 --- compares files, and shows where they
differ
* wc filename --- tells you how many lines, words, and characters
there are in a file
* chmod options filename --- lets you change the read, write, and
execute permissions on your files. The default

is that only you can look at them and change them, but you may
sometimes want to change these permissions. For

example, chmod o+r filename will make the file readable for
everyone, and chmod o-r filename will make it unreadable

for others again. Note that for someone to be able to actually look at
the file the directories it is in need to be

at least executable. See help protection for more details.

* File Compression
o gzip filename --- compresses files, so that they take up much less
space. Usually text files compress to

about half their original size, but it depends very much on the size of
the file and the nature of the contents.

There are other tools for this purpose, too (e.g. compress), but gzip
usually gives the highest compression rate.

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Gzip produces files with the ending '.gz' appended to the original
filename.
o gunzip filename --- uncompresses files compressed by gzip.
o gzcat filename --- lets you look at a gzipped file without actually
having to gunzip it (same as gunzip

-c). You can even print it directly, using gzcat filename | lpr
* printing
o lpr filename --- print. Use the -P option to specify the printer name if
you want to use a printer other

than your default printer. For example, if you want to print double-
sided, use 'lpr -Pvalkyr-d', or if you're at

CSLI, you may want to use 'lpr -Pcord115-d'. See 'help printers' for
more information about printers and their

locations.
o lpq --- check out the printer queue, e.g. to get the number needed for
removal, or to see how many other

files will be printed before yours will come out

o lprm jobnumber --- remove something from the printer queue. You
can find the job number by using lpq.

Theoretically you also have to specify a printer name, but this isn't
necessary as long as you use your default

printer in the department.

o genscript --- converts plain text files into postscript for printing, and
gives you some options for

formatting. Consider making an alias like alias ecop 'genscript -2 -r \!*

| lpr -h -Pvalkyr' to print two pages on

one piece of paper.

o dvips filename --- print .dvi files (i.e. files produced by LaTeX). You

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can use dviselect to print only

selected pages. See the LaTeX page for more information about how
to save paper when printing drafts.

Directories
Directories, like folders on a Macintosh, are used to group files
together in a hierarchical structure.

* mkdir dirname --- make a new directory

* cd dirname --- change directory. You basically 'go' to another
directory, and you will see the files in that

directory when you do 'ls'. You always start out in your 'home
directory', and you can get back there by typing 'cd'

without arguments. 'cd ..' will get you one level up from your current
position. You don't have to walk along step

by step - you can make big leaps or avoid walking around by

specifying pathnames.
* pwd --- tells you where you currently are.

Finding things

* ff --- find files anywhere on the system. This can be extremely useful
if you've forgotten in which directory

you put a file, but do remember the name. In fact, if you use ff -p you
don't even need the full name, just the

beginning. This can also be useful for finding other things on the
system, e.g. documentation.
* grep string filename(s) --- looks for the string in the files. This can be
useful a lot of purposes, e.g.

finding the right file among many, figuring out which is the right

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version of something, and even doing serious

corpus work. grep comes in several varieties (grep, egrep, and fgrep)
and has a lot of very flexible options. Check

out the man pages if this sounds good to you.

About other people

* w --- tells you who's logged in, and what they're doing. Especially
useful: the 'idle' part. This allows you

to see whether they're actually sitting there typing away at their

keyboards right at the moment.
* who --- tells you who's logged on, and where they're coming from.
Useful if you're looking for someone who's

actually physically in the same building as you, or in some other

particular location.
* finger username --- gives you lots of information about that user, e.g.
when they last read their mail and

whether they're logged in. Often people put other practical

information, such as phone numbers and addresses, in a

file called .plan. This information is also displayed by 'finger'.

* last -1 username --- tells you when the user last logged on and off
and from where. Without any options, last

will give you a list of everyone's logins.

* talk username --- lets you have a (typed) conversation with another
user
* write username --- lets you exchange one-line messages with
another user
* elm --- lets you send e-mail messages to people around the world
(and, of course, read them). It's not the

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only mailer you can use, but the one we recommend. See the elm
page, and find out about the departmental mailing

lists (which you can also find in /user/linguistics/helpfile).

About your (electronic) self

* whoami --- returns your username. Sounds useless, but isn't. You
may need to find out who it is who forgot to

log out somewhere, and make sure *you* have logged out.
* finger & .plan files
of course you can finger yourself, too. That can be useful e.g. as a
quick check whether you got new mail. Try

to create a useful .plan file soon. Look at other people's .plan files for
ideas. The file needs to be readable for

everyone in order to be visible through 'finger'. Do 'chmod a+r .plan' if

necessary. You should realize that this

information is accessible from anywhere in the world, not just to

other people on turing.
* passwd --- lets you change your password, which you should do
regularly (at least once a year). See the LRB

guide and/or look at help password.

* ps -u yourusername --- lists your processes. Contains lots of
information about them, including the process

ID, which you need if you have to kill a process. Normally, when you
have been kicked out of a dialin session or

have otherwise managed to get yourself disconnected abruptly, this

list will contain the processes you need to kill.

Those may include the shell (tcsh or whatever you're using), and

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anything you were running, for example emacs or

elm. Be careful not to kill your current shell - the one with the number
closer to the one of the ps command you're

currently running. But if it happens, don't panic. Just try again Smiley
If you're using an X-display you may have

to kill some X processes before you can start them again. These will
show only when you use ps -efl, because they're

root processes.
* kill PID --- kills (ends) the processes with the ID you gave. This
works only for your own processes, of

course. Get the ID by using ps. If the process doesn't 'die' properly,
use the option -9. But attempt without that

option first, because it doesn't give the process a chance to finish

possibly important business before dying. You

may need to kill processes for example if your modem connection

was interrupted and you didn't get logged out

properly, which sometimes happens.

* quota -v --- show what your disk quota is (i.e. how much space you
have to store files), how much you're

actually using, and in case you've exceeded your quota (which you'll
be given an automatic warning about by the

system) how much time you have left to sort them out (by deleting or
gzipping some, or moving them to your own

computer).
* du filename --- shows the disk usage of the files and directories in
filename (without argument the current

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directory is used). du -s gives only a total.
* last yourusername --- lists your last logins. Can be a useful memory
aid for when you were where, how long

you've been working for, and keeping track of your phonebill if you're
making a non-local phonecall for dialling in.

Connecting to the outside world

* nn --- allows you to read news. It will first let you read the news
local to turing, and then the remote news.

If you want to read only the local or remote news, you can use nnl or
nnr, respectively. To learn more about nn type

nn, then \tty{:man}, then \tty{=.*}, then \tty{Z}, then hit the space bar to
step through the manual. Or look at the

man page. Or check out the hypertext nn FAQ - probably the easiest
and most fun way to go.
* rlogin hostname --- lets you connect to a remote host
* telnet hostname --- also lets you connect to a remote host. Use
rlogin whenever possible.
* ftp hostname --- lets you download files from a remote host which is
set up as an ftp-server. This is a common

method for exchanging academic papers and drafts. If you need to

make a paper of yours available in this way, you

can (temporarily) put a copy in /user/ftp/pub/TMP. For more permanent

solutions, ask Emma. The most important

commands within ftp are get for getting files from the remote
machine, and put for putting them there (mget and mput

let you specify more than one file at once). Sounds straightforward,

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but be sure not to confuse the two, especially

when your physical location doesn't correspond to the direction of the

ftp connection you're making. ftp just

overwrites files with the same filename. If you're transferring

anything other than ASCII text, use binary mode.
* lynx --- lets you browse the web from an ordinary terminal. Of course
you can see only the text, not the

pictures. You can type any URL as an argument to the G command.

When you're doing this from any Stanford host you

can leave out the .stanford.edu part of the URL when connecting to
Stanford URLs. Type H at any time to learn more

about lynx, and Q to exit.

Miscellaneous tools

* webster word --- looks up the word in an electronic version of

Webster's dictionary and returns the

definition(s)
* date --- shows the current date and time.
* cal --- shows a calendar of the current month. Use e.g., 'cal 10 1995'
to get that for October 95, or 'cal

1995' to get the whole year.

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