Finding your way around the file system

You are at the command prompt. You have no idea were in the file system you are. What do you do? In order to find out the path of the directory that you're in, type pwd.

[otto@shell internet]$ pwd
/home/o/t/otto/
[otto@shell internet]$   

Odds are, if you just logged in, you will be in your home directory, which is home/username. Now that you know where you are, use ls -la to get a directory listing.

[otto@shell otto]$ ls
#pico23295#      .bash_profile  .plan        art4.zip           mail/
#pico29260#      .bashrc        .procmail/   babies2.JPG        pinerc01
./               .elm/          .procmailrc  bigots/            stuff/
../              .letter.swp    .rnlast      bin/               referance
.addressbook     .lynx_cookies  .rnsoft      braindump		resume.doc
.addressbook.lu  .mailbox       .signature   coverletter.doc	story2.doc
.aliases         .newsrc        .tin/        cyberpunk          tiny.doc
.article.swm     .oldnewsrc     Mail/        dead.letter        tiny.rtf
.article.swn     .pine-debug1   News/        games.ZIP          www/
.article.swo     .pine-debug2   art.ZIP      games2.ZIP		writings/
.article.swp     .pine-debug3   art1.ZIP     library
.bash_history    .pine-debug4   art2.ZIP     links.html
.bash_logout     .pinerc        art3.ZIP     lynx_bookmarks.html
[otto@shell otto]$   

As you can see, my home directory is a dumping ground for all sorts of stuff. The files that start with a period, like .addressbook are hidden files. Usually you can only see them if you put a -a after the ls command. The files with a / behind them are directories, for example Mail/.

A lot of the files that I have on my shell account are temporary storage. The art and game zip files, for an example, I'm currently moving from one computer to another and they are too big to fit on disks. Wow, I should clean this up.

The first thing that I should do is make a directory to put them in. I will call it "storage" and use the mkdir command to add it.

From now on, I will be shortening the directory listings for the sake of brevity.

[otto@shell otto]$ mkdir storage
[otto@shell otto]$ ls
../              .letter.swp    .rnlast      bin/               referance
.addressbook     .lynx_cookies  .rnsoft      braindump		resume.doc
.addressbook.lu  .mailbox       .signature   coverletter.doc    storage/
.aliases         .newsrc        .tin/        cyberpunk		story2.doc

As you can see, there is now a folder called storage in the home directory. How do I move those pesky zip files into it? With the mv command. Here's how it works.

I decide which files I want to move, all of the zip files. They all have a .zip extension, which means I can move them all in one command with a wildcard. So I want to tell the computer to move the files, which files I want moved, and where I want to move them to. Then, I will use the ls command to show that these files have indeed been moved.

[otto@shell otto]$ mv *.zip storage
[otto@shell otto]$ ls
.article.swn     .pine-debug1   News/        games2.ZIP         www/
.article.swo     .pine-debug2   art.ZIP      library		writings/
.article.swp     .pine-debug3   art1.ZIP     links.html
.bash_history    .pine-debug4   art2.ZIP     lynx_bookmarks.html
.bash_logout     .pinerc        art3.ZIP     mail/
[otto@shell otto]$ cd storage
[otto@shell storage]$ ls
./  ../  art4.zip

This is very embarrassing. Why didn't it work? Why did only one of the files that I said for it to move end up moved?

Look very closely. I told it to move all of the .zip files. art4.zip was in fact moved, but none of the other zip files were. This is because the extensions of the other files is .ZIP instead of .zip. Let me try this again.

[otto@shell storage]$ cd ..
[otto@shell otto]$ mv *.ZIP storage
[otto@shell otto]$ ls

.article.swm     .pine-debug1   babies2.JPG      resume.doc
.article.swn     .pine-debug2   bigots/          storage/
.article.swo     .pine-debug3   bin/             story2.doc
.article.swp     .pine-debug4   braindump        tiny.doc
.bash_history    .pinerc        coverletter.doc  tiny.rtf

[otto@shell otto]$ ls
./  ../  art.ZIP  art1.ZIP  art2.ZIP  art3.ZIP  art4.zip  games.ZIP
games2.ZIP
[otto@shell storage]$

As you can see, the zip files are all stored away nicely.

Now, lets got to the directory where I seem to spend ALL of my time these days for some more fun.

[otto@shell internet]$ cd ../bigots/internet

Since I finished the ftp page, I don't need the ftp-cuts file of my screen shots anymore, so I may as well delete it. To do this, use the rm command.

[otto@shell internet]$ rm ftp-cuts
[otto@shell internet]$ ls
./   ReadMe.htm  news.html  textbased.html  tin.html
../  ftp.html    pine.html  thebasics.html
[otto@shell internet]$ 

Notice that it didn't ask me for confirmation. It didn't ask me if I was sure. Notice, there is no recycling bin. Do not delete anything unless you are sure you don't need it. Be very careful in using wildcards with it because it will delete everything that qualifies without asking you.

Four Useful Utilities

The first useful utility is Pico. Did you read the pine section? Pico will look familiar.

Pico is a text editor that is very quick and easy to use. It has the same interface as Pine. Basic commands that are good to know are ^K to cut a line of text, ^O to save, ^G to get help, ^T to go into the spell check and ^x to exit.

Type pico and the name of the file that you want to edit.

[otto@shell internet]$ pico sonnet_132 

Here's a look at what you get.

  UW PICO(tm) 3.5                File: sonnet   	Modified  

SONNET NO. 132

                Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
                Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain
                Have put on black, and loving mourners be
                Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain,
                And truly not the morning sun of heaven
                Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
                Nor that full star that ushers in the even
                Doth half that glory to the sober west
                As those two morning eyes become thy face:
                0, let it then as well beseem thy heart
                To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
                And suit thy pity like in every part.
                Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
                And all they foul that thy complexion lack.



                               [ Read  20 lines ]
^G Get Help  ^O WriteOut  ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg   ^K Cut Text  ^C Cur
Pos
^X Exit      ^J Justify   ^W Where is  ^V Next Pg   ^U UnCut Text^T
ToSpell

You can use pico to edit any text file, including web pages. This, in fact, is what I'm using to write this page right now.

Another useful utility that I will cover is telnet. Telnet takes you from the machine that you're on and lets you access another machine.

As an example, I will telnet to freeshell.org.

[otto@shell internet]$ telnet freeshell.org
Trying 63.68.131.237...
Connected to freeshell.org.
Escape character is '^]'.

GNU Version FOO (Channel sty.s_telnet_083)  02/28/00  1405.06 cst Mon
Up 17 days, 01:49 hours; Load = 8.05 out of 150.0 units; Users = 80

sdf.lonestar.org
if new, login "visitor" ..

login:

Here, I log in under my account. On freeshell, you can sign up for an account by typing visitor at the login and following the directions.

Freeshell allows you free e-mail using pine or some other UNIX standard mail reader. If you want to access lynx or tin, you have to pay a one time fee of $30. They do have some extras, though, like games.

If you type games at the command prompt, you get a list of games they provide. I highly recommend Robots.

countmail          macarena           robots             worm
cribbage           mazewar            rot                wump
dungeon            mille              rot13              yow
f00f               monop              sail
factor             morse              showfigfonts

Most games use "vi" keys for direction, meaning:

                  k
                h   l
                  j

Also, you can quit most games by sending ^C from your TTY.
$ 

Note the last line. ^C is one of the most useful command in the UNIX, if not in the entire non-Microsoft world. By pressing ^C it gets you out of the program that you are in. If you are in almost any program that ceases to work, you can press ^C to get out.

When you are done playing, type logout, and that will take you back to your original machine.

Talk is a utility to talk, in real time, to other people with UNIX shells. Type talk email address and the will receive a message saying that some one wants to talk to them. Then, they will type talk your email address and you will be in a split screen where half of the screen shows what you are typing, and the other half shows what they are typing. To get out, press ^C, and it takes you back to the command prompt. Move over IRC, talk is quick, easy, and takes almost no bandwidth.

Lynx is a common text based web browser that is very fast, easy, and one of my favorites. You call it up on the command line by typing lynx or lynx url. I was originally going to write a segment on it, but it seems so self explanatory that I can't bear the idea of doing that. Use ? to get to the help section which lists all of the possible commands. Use g to type in the website that you would like to go to.

There is a point where one must teach themselves, and this is the point. All of you, go bring up lynx and just play. It will be good for you.

Getting Help

The help command in UNIX is man, which is short for manual. Type man.

[otto@shell internet]$ man
What manual page do you want?
[otto@shell internet]$ 

What was that? In order to use man, you need to look up a command. You do this by typing man command.

[otto@shell internet]$ man man
man(1)                                                     man(1)

NAME
       man - format and display the on-line manual pages
       manpath - determine user's search path for man pages

SYNOPSIS
       man  [-acdfFhkKtwW]  [-m  system]  [-p  string]  [-C  con-
       fig_file] [-M path] [-P pager] [-S section_list] [section]
       name ...

DESCRIPTION
       man  formats  and displays the on-line manual pages.  This
       version knows about the MANPATH and (MAN)PAGER environment
       variables, so you can have your own set(s) of personal man
       pages and choose whatever program you like to display  the
       formatted  pages.  If section is specified, man only looks
       in that section of the manual.  You may also  specify  the
       order to search the sections for entries and which prepro-
       cessors to run  on  the  source  files  via  command  line
       options  or  environment  variables.  If name contains a /              
:

You can do this with any command or utility I have covered. To go to the next page, use the spacebar. To quit, type Q.

This about covers it. I hope that all of you learned something. I you have any comments, questions, corrections, etc, feel free to mail me. Thanks for listening.

• You can check your mail through Pine.
• You can check out the newsgroups through tin.
• You may want to download some files with ftp.