Documentation - Operating Systems
Basic Unix - Appendix B: Intermediate Command Reference
This command reference sheet gives you a list of Unix commands organized by topic.
- login stuff
- reading messages: msgs
setting up your terminal: tset ; stty (options) - file system
- locating programs: whereis, which
checking disk space: du (-a), df
compression: compress, uncompress - file information
- count words/lines in a file: wc sort a file: sort
look at the beginning or end of a file: head, tail
search for strings in files:grep pattern filelist - file permissions/security
- change your password: passwd
change file protection: chmod
- sending/receivingelectronic mail : mail, mm
- saving your session into a file: script
- text editing: vi, emacs, pico
- printing: lpr, enscript (-P printername)
- working with printer queues: lpq, lprm (-P printername)
- transferring files: ftp
- looking at the time: date
- ^C interrupts what you have a program doing at the time
- ^D exits from many programs
- ^U (in csh or tcsh) will erase a command line on most terminals
- ^Z suspends things
- `.' means where you are now; `..' means the directory right above you. These are relative.
- `~' is your home directory, and is absolute.
- `~' can also be used as shorthand for "the path leading up to another user's account name," so /h2/foo/file = ~foo/file (the system looks up "user" or "foo" in the password file, and comes back with something like /nfs/harper/h2/foo ... ).
- usharper (USITE/Harper), cllw1 (USITE/Crerar); residence-hall LaserWriters
- If you'll be doing a lot of printing in one session, you can say setenv PRINTER printername instead of retyping "-P printername" after each print command. This will set your printer for the rest of the session.
Go to Appendix C: Working with .login and .cshrc or return to Unix Tutorial Table of Contents
Last updated: 7/15/08