ESE355 Lab - How to Get Started

In the lab, all your work will be done on SUN Solaris workstations. Solaris is SUN's UNIX. If you know nothing about UNIX, it will be a good idea to find some online UNIX tutorials. Searching "unix tutorial" in google.com, you will get a lot of websites. I recommend you M.Stonebank's and ISU's. Because I did not check all of these websites, you could find a better one. Please kindly email me your discovery if you do.

First Time Login - Step By Step

  1. Login one of computers.
  2. After the CDE Graphical User Interface starts up, if there are some windows pop up asking to choose "AGREE" "OK" "Cancel"..., click "Cancel" button to close these windows
  3. Open a terminal: Click mouse right button -> Tools -> Terminal.
  4. Change your password(recommended): type "passwd" in a terminal, then click Enter key, follow the prompts to change it.
  5. Close the terminal.
  6. Open a new terminal. Now you are ready to use the tools.

Get Ready to Work In 15 Minutes

You are expected to finish this section to know some basic UNIX commands in 15 minutes. If you have experience on UNIX, you can skip this section.

  • Using the Common Desktop Environment (CDE)

    • Using CDE is very similar to using MS windows. Click the right button of your mouse, you will see the menu. At present the tools/applications we are interested in are Terminal, File Manager, Text Editor. Open each of them to see how they work. Take advantage of your experience on MS Windows.

    I have to tell you that people working on UNIX don't use windows stuff so much. They do most of their work in terminals. Opening a terminal and entering come commands is the first choice when they want to do something. Because it is faster and more convinient.

  • Command Line Usage

    • Open a terminal. Run following commands(in bold only).

    1. cd ~
      Enter your home directory. "cd" means change directory. "~" denotes your home directory.
    2. pwd
      "pwd" means print working directory. It helps you to know which directory you are working in. Here, the directory showed by pwd is your home directory, which means you are the owner of this directory. In this directory, you have right to handle your files as you want. You can read files, create new files, modify exist files, delete files..., even you can set your files unreadable to others.
    3. ls
      "ls" is the short for list, listing the file in the directory. Do you see any files? It is said one files has been copied to my home directory. But, why I can not see it? ...
    4. ls -a
      "ls -a" means "list all files". Now you see some files beginning with a dot(.). They are known as hidden files and usually contain important program configuration information. They are hidden because you should not change them unless you are very familiar with UNIX!!!
    5. pwd
      Remember where you are. We are going to move to somewhere else.
    6. cd ..
      cd means "change directory". ".." means parent directory. Please note there are a space between "cd" and "..". You have entered the upper level directory of your home directory.
    7. pwd
      Now you see the change.
    8. ls -l
      Try again with an argument. You see more information about files.

      r, w, x are the flags for the rights to Read, Write, Execute. From the list, you find you have right to read most of TA's files, but you cannot write/modify/delete them.
    9. cd ~
      Let's go back to you home directory. "~" means home directory.
    10. pwd
      Display your home directory here. You will use it soon.
    11. dtpad &
      dtpad is an X-windows text editor. I believe it is the fastest way for beginners to start their work on UNIX. Later, you might choose vi or emacs/xemacs. "&" enable you to continue using the terminal while dtpad is still running. You can use command "dtpad test &" to edit a new file named "test". Write something now, then save it as file named "test". Close dtpad window.
    12. mkdir tmpdir
      mkdir means "make directory". You have create a new directory named "tmpdir" in your homedirectory.
    13. ls -l
    14. cp test tmpdir/testnew
      cp is the short for "copy". Format: "cp SOURCE_FILE TARGET_FILE".
    15. cd tmpdir
    16. ls -l
      You are in ~/tmpdir/ or /home/home2/ug***/tmpdir.
    17. mv testnew test
      mv means move. Here we "move" file testnew to current directory, but rename it to test. format: "mv SOURCE_FILE/PATH TARGET_FILE/PATH"
    18. ls -l
      To see the change of the file name.
    19. rm test
      rm means "remove". You've deleted the file named test in tmpdir directory.
    20. ls -l
      To see the change.
    21. cd ..
      Go back to your home directory. You can use "cd ~" or "cd" also.
    22. rmdir tmpdir
      rmdir = remove dir. Delete an empty directory.

    In summary, you need to know following commands: