Unix is a Four Letter Word...

Christopher C. Taylor

August 1993

Copyright 1993 by Christopher C. Taylor. Permission to copy all or part of this work is granted, provided that the copies are not made or distributed for resale, and that the copyright notice and this notice are retained.

This work is provided on an "as is" basis. The author provides no warranty whatsoever, either express or implied, regarding the work, including warranties with respect to its merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.

Corrections and suggestions are welcomed by the author. He can be reached by electronic mail at c.c.taylor@ieee.org or by phone at 1-800-IDIOT-IQ.

• Introduction
  • What is this thing?
  • Why read this thing?
• Contents
• Unix
  • Overview
    • Case sensitivity
    • The shell
    • Command syntax
    • Correcting typos
    • Controlling your terminal output
  • Files and directories
    • Pathnames
    • Naming files and directories
  • Online manual
  • Basic commands
    • Logging on (rlogin)
    • Changing your password (passwd)
    • Getting out (exit)
    • Listing files (ls)
    • Catenate (cat)
    • Paging display system (more)
    • Copying files (cp)
    • Removing files (rm)
    • Renaming and moving files and directories (mv)
    • Navigating the directory tree (cd)
    • Directory creation and destruction (mkdir and rmdir)
  • Additional commands
    • alias
    • ap
    • biff
    • chmod
    • compress/uncompress
    • df
    • diff
    • du
    • echo
    • find
    • finger
    • ftp
    • grep
    • history
    • kill
    • look
    • mail
    • ps
    • script
    • setenv
    • source
    • spell
    • tar
    • telnet
    • umask
    • who
    • A bunch more commands
  • Login files
    • The .cshrc file
    • The .login file
  • Special characters
    • Wildcards
    • Redirecting input and output
    • Pipes
    • Quote characters
    • Other special characters
  • Miscellaneous tips
    • Removing files with strange names
    • Wildcards beyond the working directory
    • Terminal input in a shell script
    • Remote shell trick
    • Loops in scripts
    • More tricks
  • Things to try
• Vi - Text Editing
  • Overview
  • Starting vi
  • Insert mode
  • Command mode
    • Moving around
    • Deleting text
    • Saving and quitting
    • Copy, delete, and moving text
    • Search and replace
    • Undo
    • Repeat
  • Vi reference
    • Notation for this reference
    • Move commands (See also Display commands)
    • Searching
    • Undoing changes
    • Inserting text
    • Deleting text
    • Changing text
    • Substitute replacement patterns
    • Remembering text (yanking)
    • Commands while in insert or change mode
    • Display commands (See also Move commands)
    • Writing, editing other files, and quitting vi
    • Macros
    • Switch and shell commands
    • Vi startup
    • The most important options
  • Miscellaneous tips
    • Line deletions
    • Switching cases
    • Spell checking in vi
    • Additional search and replace
    • Removing blank lines
    • Writing from buffers
  • Further reading
• About the Author
• About this document