A UNIX Activity

This is a short activity to help you get comfortable with some of the basic Unix commands, especially manipulating files and directories. It shouldn't take too long to complete this activity. You may want to quickly read through the entire UNIX guide before you begin. Have fun!

Be sure you are in your home directory. If you are not type 'cd'. This will automatically return you to your home directory.

  1. Open up a new shell using a shell command and run it in the background.
  2. List out all the items in your home directory (including .files), flagging the file names so you can distinguish filenames and directories.
  3. Create a new file in your directory called '.plan'. The information in your .plan is listed when someone fingers you. To see some examples of .plans so you can create your own, finger dmb, adt and some other people in the department. Create a .plan and then finger yourself to test it.
  4. Use more and less to read what is in your .alias file. Your .alias file allows you create shorter aliases for commands that you use frequently.
  5. Create a new file in your directory that contains phone numbers of important people. Use the sort command to sort this list by your friends' names. Redirect the sorted output to a new file "sortednums"
  6. Change the permissions of the sortednumbers file so that anyone can read or write to it.
  7. Search the sortednums file for a friend's name and return the line and line number of the search result.
  8. Use a printer command to print out the sortednums file to the cis printer.
  9. Create a new directory in your home directory and call it "Bridge".
  10. Change directories into the "Bridge" directory and create a new directory in that directory called "www" that is a symbolic link to "/pro/web/web/courses/bridge/students/<your account>/".
  11. Kill your zwgc process (which allows you to send zwrites to other users) and restart it.
  12. Remotely log on to the computer next to you.
  13. Arrange so the computer you are remotely logged onto can use your x server, and then set the display of that machine to be your x server.
  14. Run xcolorsel on the computer you are remotely logged on to (it should appear on your screen if you set the x server and the display correctly).
  15. List out the people in group cs015ta.
  16. Locate where people in group cs015ta are logged in.
  17. From a shell, read the newsgroup brown.cs.general.
  18. Change your password (change it back if you don't like your new password).
  19. Try out some of the communication commands with another student.
  20. Try out the fun commands.


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