Unix and Linux: Visual Quickstart Guide, Fifth Edition

Book description

In this updated edition, authors Deborah and Eric Ray use crystal-clear instructions and friendly prose to introduce you to all of today's Unix essentials. You’ll find the information you need to get started with the operating system and learn the most common Unix commands and concepts so that Unix can do the hard work for you. After mastering the basics of Unix, you’ll move on to how to use directories and files, work with a shell, and create and edit files. You’ll then learn how to manipulate files, configure a Unix environment, and run–and even write–scripts. Throughout the book–from logging in to being root–the authors offer essential coverage of Unix.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Table of Contents
  6. Introduction
    1. How Do You Use This Book?
    2. Who Are You?
    3. What Do You Need Computer-Wise?
    4. What Do You Need to Know to Get Started?
    5. Anything Else You Should Know?
  7. 1. Getting Started with Unix and Linux
    1. Accessing a Unix System
    2. Connecting to the Unix or Linux System
    3. Logging In
    4. Changing Your Password with passwd
    5. Listing Directories and Files with ls
    6. Changing Directories with cd
    7. Finding Yourself with pwd
    8. Piping Input and Output
    9. Redirecting Output
    10. Using Wildcards
    11. Viewing File Contents with more
    12. Displaying File Contents with cat
    13. Exploring the System
    14. Getting Help with man
    15. Logging Out
  8. 2. Using Directories and Files
    1. Creating Directories with mkdir
    2. Creating Files with touch
    3. Copying Directories and Files with cp
    4. Listing Directories and Files with ls (More Goodies)
    5. Moving Files with mv
    6. Removing Files with rm
    7. Removing Directories with rmdir
    8. Finding Forgotten Files with find
    9. Locating Lost Files with locate
    10. Linking with ln (Hard Links)
    11. Linking with ln -s (Soft Links)
  9. 3. Working with Your Shell
    1. Discovering Which Shell You’re Using
    2. Understanding Shells and Options
    3. Changing Your Shell with chsh
    4. Changing Your Shell Temporarily
    5. Using Completion in the bash Shell
    6. Viewing Session History in the bash Shell
    7. Using Completion in the zsh Shell
    8. Viewing Session History in the zsh Shell
    9. Changing Your Identity with su
    10. Fixing Terminal Settings with stty
    11. Exiting the Shell
  10. 4. Creating and Editing Files
    1. Choosing an Editor: nano/pico or vi/vim
    2. Starting nano and Dabbling with It
    3. Saving in nano
    4. Cutting and Pasting Text Blocks in nano
    5. Checking Spelling in nano
    6. Getting Help in nano
    7. Exiting nano
    8. Starting vi (or vim) and Dabbling with It
    9. Saving in vi
    10. Adding and Deleting Text in vi
    11. Importing Files into vi
    12. Searching and Replacing in vi
    13. Exiting vi
  11. 5. Controlling Ownership and Permissions
    1. Understanding File Ownership and Permissions
    2. Finding Out Who Owns What
    3. Finding Out Which Group You’re In
    4. Changing the Group Association of Files and Directories with chgrp
    5. Changing Ownership of Files and Directories with chown
    6. Changing Permissions with chmod
    7. Translating Mnemonic Permissions to Numeric Permissions
    8. Changing Permission Defaults with umask
  12. 6. Manipulating Files
    1. Counting Files and Their Contents with wc
    2. Viewing File Beginnings with head
    3. Viewing File Endings with tail
    4. Finding Text with grep
    5. Using Regular Expressions with grep
    6. Using Other Examples of Regular Expressions
    7. Making Global Changes with sed
    8. Changing Files with awk
    9. Comparing Files with cmp
    10. Finding Differences in Files with diff
    11. Finding Differences in Files with sdiff
    12. Sorting Files with sort
    13. Eliminating Duplicates with uniq
    14. Redirecting to Multiple Locations with tee
    15. Changing with tr
    16. Formatting with fmt
    17. Splitting Files with split
  13. 7. Getting Information About the System
    1. Getting System Information with uname
    2. Viewing File Systems with df
    3. Determining Disk Usage with du
    4. Finding Out File Types with file
    5. Finding Out About Users with finger
    6. Learning Who Else Is Logged In with who
    7. Learning Who Else Is Logged In with w
    8. Getting Information About Your Userid with id
  14. 8. Configuring Your Unix or Linux Environment
    1. Understanding Your Unix or Linux Environment
    2. Discovering Your Current Environment
    3. Adding or Changing Variables
    4. Looking at Your zsh Configuration Files
    5. Adding to Your zsh Path
    6. Changing Your zsh Prompt
    7. Looking at Your bash Configuration Files
    8. Adding to Your bash Path
    9. Changing Your bash Prompt
    10. Setting Aliases with alias
  15. 9. Running Scripts and Programs
    1. Running a Command
    2. Scheduling Onetime Jobs with at
    3. Scheduling Regularly Occurring Jobs with cron
    4. Suspending Jobs
    5. Checking Job Status with jobs
    6. Running Jobs in the Background with bg
    7. Running Jobs in the Foreground with fg
    8. Controlling Job Priority with nice
    9. Timing Jobs with time
    10. Finding Out What Processes Are Running with ps
    11. Deleting Processes with kill
  16. 10. Writing Basic Scripts
    1. Creating a Shell Script
    2. Running a Shell Script
    3. Making a Script Executable
    4. Getting a Head Start on Scripts with history
    5. Embedding Commands
    6. Looping Your Scripts
    7. Creating If-Then Statements
    8. Accepting Command-Line Arguments in Your Scripts
    9. Accepting Input While a Script Is Running
    10. Debugging Scripts
  17. 11. Sending and Reading Email
    1. Choosing an Email Program and Getting Started
    2. Reading Email with alpine
    3. Sending Email with alpine
    4. Customizing alpine
    5. Reading Email with mutt
    6. Sending Email with mutt
    7. Reading Email with mail
    8. Sending Email with mail
    9. Creating a Signature File
    10. Automatically Forwarding Incoming Messages
    11. Announcing an Absence with vacation
    12. Configuring procmail
    13. Managing Email with procmail
  18. 12. Accessing the Internet
    1. Getting Familiar with Internet Lingo
    2. Logging In to Remote Systems with ssh
    3. Logging In to Remote Systems with telnet
    4. Communicating with Others Using write
    5. Communicating with Others Using talk
    6. Getting Files from the Internet with ftp
    7. Sharing Files on the Internet with ftp
    8. Surfing the Web with links
    9. Surfing the Web with lynx
    10. Downloading Websites with wget
    11. Checking Connections with ping
    12. Tracing Connections with traceroute
    13. Matching Domain Names with IP Addresses
  19. 13. Working with Encoded and Compressed Files
    1. Encoding Files with uuencode
    2. Decoding Files with uudecode
    3. Archiving with tar
    4. Unarchiving Files with tar
    5. Compressing Files with compress
    6. Uncompressing Files with uncompress
    7. Zipping a File or Directory with gzip
    8. Unzipping a gzip File with gunzip
    9. Zipping Files and Directories with zip
    10. Unzipping Zipped Files with unzip
    11. Combining Commands
  20. 14. Using Handy Utilities
    1. Calendaring with cal
    2. Calculating with bc
    3. Evaluating Expressions with expr
    4. Converting with units
    5. Looking It Up with look
    6. Keeping a Record of Your Session with script
    7. Getting Back to Your Place with screen
    8. Acting On Found Files with xargs
  21. 15. Being Root
    1. Acting Like root with sudo
    2. Becoming root with su
    3. Starting, Stopping, and Restarting Daemons
    4. Changing the System Configuration
    5. Monitoring the System
    6. Keeping Up with watch
    7. Checking Boot Messages with dmesg
    8. Setting the Date and Time
  22. 16. Sensational Unix Tricks
    1. Cleaning Up HTML Documents with tidy
    2. Searching and Replacing Throughout Multiple Documents with sed
    3. Generating Reports with awk
    4. Using Input to Customize Your Environment
    5. Using ROT13 Encoding with sed
    6. Embedding ROT13 Encoding in a Shell Script
    7. Making Backups with rsync
    8. Using Advanced Redirection with stderr
  23. A. Unix and Linux Reference
  24. B. What’s What and What’s Where
  25. C. Commands, Flags, and Arguments
  26. Index

Product information

  • Title: Unix and Linux: Visual Quickstart Guide, Fifth Edition
  • Author(s): Eric J. Ray, Deborah S. Ray
  • Release date: July 2014
  • Publisher(s): Peachpit Press
  • ISBN: 9780133793871