INTRO
Section: Linux User's Manual (1)
Updated: 2015-07-23
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NAME
intro - introduction to user commands
DESCRIPTION
Section 1 of the manual describes user commands and tools,
for example, file manipulation tools, shells, compilers,
web browsers, file and image viewers and editors, and so on.
NOTES
Linux is a flavor of UNIX, and as a first approximation
all user commands under UNIX work precisely the same under
Linux (and FreeBSD and lots of other UNIX-like systems).
Under Linux, there are GUIs (graphical user interfaces), where you
can point and click and drag, and hopefully get work done without
first reading lots of documentation.
The traditional UNIX environment
is a CLI (command line interface), where you type commands to
tell the computer what to do.
That is faster and more powerful,
but requires finding out what the commands are.
Below a bare minimum, to get started.
Login
In order to start working, you probably first have to open a session by
giving your username and password.
The program
login(1)
now starts a
shell
(command interpreter) for you.
In case of a graphical login, you get a screen with menus or icons
and a mouse click will start a shell in a window.
See also
xterm(1).
The shell
One types commands to the
shell,
the command interpreter.
It is not built-in, but is just a program
and you can change your shell.
Everybody has her own favorite one.
The standard one is called
sh.
See also
ash(1),
bash(1),
chsh(1),
csh(1),
dash(1),
ksh(1),
zsh(1).
A session might go like:
knuth login: aeb
Password: ********
$ date
Tue Aug 6 23:50:44 CEST 2002
$ cal
August 2002
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
$ ls
bin tel
$ ls -l
total 2
drwxrwxr-x 2 aeb 1024 Aug 6 23:51 bin
-rw-rw-r-- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:52 tel
$ cat tel
maja 0501-1136285
peter 0136-7399214
$ cp tel tel2
$ ls -l
total 3
drwxr-xr-x 2 aeb 1024 Aug 6 23:51 bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:52 tel
-rw-r--r-- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:53 tel2
$ mv tel tel1
$ ls -l
total 3
drwxr-xr-x 2 aeb 1024 Aug 6 23:51 bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:52 tel1
-rw-r--r-- 1 aeb 37 Aug 6 23:53 tel2
$ diff tel1 tel2
$ rm tel1
$ grep maja tel2
maja 0501-1136285
$
Here typing Control-D ended the session.
The
$
here was the command prompt---it is the shell's way of indicating
that it is ready for the next command.
The prompt can be customized
in lots of ways, and one might include stuff like username,
machine name, current directory, time, and so on.
An assignment PS1="What next, master? "
would change the prompt as indicated.
We see that there are commands
date
(that gives date and time), and
cal
(that gives a calendar).
The command
ls
lists the contents of the current directory---it tells you what
files you have.
With a
-l
option it gives a long listing,
that includes the owner and size and date of the file, and the
permissions people have for reading and/or changing the file.
For example, the file "tel" here is 37 bytes long, owned by aeb
and the owner can read and write it, others can only read it.
Owner and permissions can be changed by the commands
chown
and
chmod.
The command
cat
will show the contents of a file.
(The name is from "concatenate and print": all files given as
parameters are concatenated and sent to "standard output"
(see
stdout(3)),
here
the terminal screen.)
The command
cp
(from "copy") will copy a file.
The command
mv
(from "move"), on the other hand, only renames it.
The command
diff
lists the differences between two files.
Here there was no output because there were no differences.
The command
rm
(from "remove") deletes the file, and be careful! it is gone.
No wastepaper basket or anything.
Deleted means lost.
The command
grep
(from "g/re/p") finds occurrences of a string in one or more files.
Here it finds Maja's telephone number.
Pathnames and the current directory
Files live in a large tree, the file hierarchy.
Each has a
pathname
describing the path from the root of the tree (which is called
/)
to the file.
For example, such a full pathname might be
/home/aeb/tel.
Always using full pathnames would be inconvenient, and the name
of a file in the current directory may be abbreviated by giving
only the last component.
That is why
/home/aeb/tel
can be abbreviated
to
tel
when the current directory is
/home/aeb.
The command
pwd
prints the current directory.
The command
cd
changes the current directory.
Try alternatively
cd
and
pwd
commands and explore
cd
usage: "cd", "cd .", "cd ..", "cd /" and "cd ~".
Directories
The command
mkdir
makes a new directory.
The command
rmdir
removes a directory if it is empty, and complains otherwise.
The command
find
(with a rather baroque syntax) will find files with given name
or other properties.
For example, "find . -name tel" would find
the file
tel
starting in the present directory (which is called
.).
And "find / -name tel" would do the same, but starting at the root
of the tree.
Large searches on a multi-GB disk will be time-consuming,
and it may be better to use
locate(1).
Disks and filesystems
The command
mount
will attach the filesystem found on some disk (or floppy, or CDROM or so)
to the big filesystem hierarchy.
And
umount
detaches it again.
The command
df
will tell you how much of your disk is still free.
Processes
On a UNIX system many user and system processes run simultaneously.
The one you are talking to runs in the
foreground,
the others in the
background.
The command
ps
will show you which processes are active and what numbers these
processes have.
The command
kill
allows you to get rid of them.
Without option this is a friendly
request: please go away.
And "kill -9" followed by the number
of the process is an immediate kill.
Foreground processes can often be killed by typing Control-C.
Getting information
There are thousands of commands, each with many options.
Traditionally commands are documented on
man pages,
(like this one), so that the command "man kill" will document
the use of the command "kill" (and "man man" document the command "man").
The program
man
sends the text through some
pager,
usually
less.
Hit the space bar to get the next page, hit q to quit.
In documentation it is customary to refer to man pages
by giving the name and section number, as in
man(1).
Man pages are terse, and allow you to find quickly some forgotten
detail.
For newcomers an introductory text with more examples
and explanations is useful.
A lot of GNU/FSF software is provided with info files.
Type "info info"
for an introduction on the use of the program
info.
Special topics are often treated in HOWTOs.
Look in
/usr/share/doc/howto/en
and use a browser if you find HTML files there.
SEE ALSO
ash(1),
bash(1),
chsh(1),
csh(1),
dash(1),
ksh(1),
locate(1),
login(1),
man(1),
xterm(1),
zsh(1),
wait(2),
stdout(3),
man-pages(7),
standards(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 4.13 of the Linux
man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
information about reporting bugs,
and the latest version of this page,
can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Index
- NAME
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- NOTES
-
- Login
-
- The shell
-
- Pathnames and the current directory
-
- Directories
-
- Disks and filesystems
-
- Processes
-
- Getting information
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- COLOPHON
-
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