1 .\" Copyright (c) 2002 Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>
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25 .TH INTRO 1 2015-07-23 "Linux" "Linux User's Manual"
27 intro \- introduction to user commands
29 Section 1 of the manual describes user commands and tools,
30 for example, file manipulation tools, shells, compilers,
31 web browsers, file and image viewers and editors, and so on.
33 Linux is a flavor of UNIX, and as a first approximation
34 all user commands under UNIX work precisely the same under
35 Linux (and FreeBSD and lots of other UNIX-like systems).
37 Under Linux, there are GUIs (graphical user interfaces), where you
38 can point and click and drag, and hopefully get work done without
39 first reading lots of documentation.
40 The traditional UNIX environment
41 is a CLI (command line interface), where you type commands to
42 tell the computer what to do.
43 That is faster and more powerful,
44 but requires finding out what the commands are.
45 Below a bare minimum, to get started.
47 In order to start working, you probably first have to open a session by
48 giving your username and password.
53 (command interpreter) for you.
54 In case of a graphical login, you get a screen with menus or icons
55 and a mouse click will start a shell in a window.
59 One types commands to the
61 the command interpreter.
62 It is not built-in, but is just a program
63 and you can change your shell.
64 Everybody has their own favorite one.
65 The standard one is called
76 A session might go like:
80 .RB "knuth login: " aeb
81 .RB "Password: " ********
83 Tue Aug 6 23:50:44 CEST 2002
97 drwxrwxr\-x 2 aeb 1024 Aug 6 23:51 bin
98 \-rw\-rw\-r\-\- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:52 tel
102 .RB "$ " "cp tel tel2"
105 drwxr\-xr\-x 2 aeb 1024 Aug 6 23:51 bin
106 \-rw\-r\-\-r\-\- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:52 tel
107 \-rw\-r\-\-r\-\- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:53 tel2
108 .RB "$ " "mv tel tel1"
111 drwxr\-xr\-x 2 aeb 1024 Aug 6 23:51 bin
112 \-rw\-r\-\-r\-\- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:52 tel1
113 \-rw\-r\-\-r\-\- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:53 tel2
114 .RB "$ " "diff tel1 tel2"
116 .RB "$ " "grep maja tel2"
122 Here typing Control-D ended the session.
126 here was the command prompt\(emit is the shell's way of indicating
127 that it is ready for the next command.
128 The prompt can be customized
129 in lots of ways, and one might include stuff like username,
130 machine name, current directory, time, and so on.
131 An assignment PS1="What next, master? "
132 would change the prompt as indicated.
134 We see that there are commands
136 (that gives date and time), and
138 (that gives a calendar).
142 lists the contents of the current directory\(emit tells you what
146 option it gives a long listing,
147 that includes the owner and size and date of the file, and the
148 permissions people have for reading and/or changing the file.
149 For example, the file "tel" here is 37 bytes long, owned by aeb
150 and the owner can read and write it, others can only read it.
151 Owner and permissions can be changed by the commands
158 will show the contents of a file.
159 (The name is from "concatenate and print": all files given as
160 parameters are concatenated and sent to "standard output"
164 the terminal screen.)
168 (from "copy") will copy a file.
172 (from "move"), on the other hand, only renames it.
176 lists the differences between two files.
177 Here there was no output because there were no differences.
181 (from "remove") deletes the file, and be careful! it is gone.
182 No wastepaper basket or anything.
187 (from "g/re/p") finds occurrences of a string in one or more files.
188 Here it finds Maja's telephone number.
189 .SS Pathnames and the current directory
190 Files live in a large tree, the file hierarchy.
193 describing the path from the root of the tree (which is called
196 For example, such a full pathname might be
198 Always using full pathnames would be inconvenient, and the name
199 of a file in the current directory may be abbreviated by giving
200 only the last component.
206 when the current directory is
211 prints the current directory.
215 changes the current directory.
223 usage: "cd", "cd .", "cd ..", "cd /" and "cd ~".
227 makes a new directory.
231 removes a directory if it is empty, and complains otherwise.
235 (with a rather baroque syntax) will find files with given name
237 For example, "find . \-name tel" would find
240 starting in the present directory (which is called
242 And "find / \-name tel" would do the same, but starting at the root
244 Large searches on a multi-GB disk will be time-consuming,
245 and it may be better to use
247 .SS Disks and filesystems
250 will attach the filesystem found on some disk (or floppy, or CDROM or so)
251 to the big filesystem hierarchy.
257 will tell you how much of your disk is still free.
259 On a UNIX system many user and system processes run simultaneously.
260 The one you are talking to runs in the
266 will show you which processes are active and what numbers these
270 allows you to get rid of them.
271 Without option this is a friendly
272 request: please go away.
273 And "kill \-9" followed by the number
274 of the process is an immediate kill.
275 Foreground processes can often be killed by typing Control-C.
276 .SS Getting information
277 There are thousands of commands, each with many options.
278 Traditionally commands are documented on
280 (like this one), so that the command "man kill" will document
281 the use of the command "kill" (and "man man" document the command "man").
284 sends the text through some
288 Hit the space bar to get the next page, hit q to quit.
290 In documentation it is customary to refer to man pages
291 by giving the name and section number, as in
293 Man pages are terse, and allow you to find quickly some forgotten
295 For newcomers an introductory text with more examples
296 and explanations is useful.
298 A lot of GNU/FSF software is provided with info files.
300 for an introduction on the use of the program
303 Special topics are often treated in HOWTOs.
305 .I /usr/share/doc/howto/en
306 and use a browser if you find HTML files there.
308 .\" Actual examples? Separate section for each of cat, cp, ...?
309 .\" gzip, bzip2, tar, rpm
projects / thirdparty / man-pages.git / blob