Contents

• Departmental Computing Facilities
• Whom to ask for help?
• Beginner's Guide
  • Getting started
    • Logging in
    • Changing your password
    • Logging out of the system
  • Some basics
    • Correcting your typing
    • Special keys
    • Case sensitivity
    • How to find information?
  • Files and directories
    • File names
    • Creating files and directories
    • Your current directory
    • Changing directories
    • Your home directory
    • Special directories
    • Special files
    • Viewing the contents of a text file
    • Listing files and directories
    • Wild-cards and file name completion
    • Copying files or directories
    • Renaming a file or directory:
    • Removing(Deleting) files or directories
  • Basic useful commands
    • Finding the date and the time
    • Obtaining information about users
    • Finding system information
    • Recording a terminal session
    • Sleeping and sequencing
    • Time a command or a program
    • Counting the number of characters, words and lines
    • Sorting files
    • Displaying the last few lines in a file
    • Finding the differences between two text files
    • Finding the differences between two binary files
    • Finding patterns in files using your buddy grep
    • Input-Output redirection
    • Where do commands live?
  • Working on the Internet
    • Host-names and Internet addresses
    • Remote access using Secure Shell
    • Remote file copy using Secure Copy
    • How to use SSH securely without a password
  • Summary
  
  
• Files and File Systems
  • Files
  • File Types
  • Directories
  • Directory Hierarchies
    • Symbolic links and hard links
  • Security and Permissions
    • File protection
    • File ownership
  • Other Common File system Operations
    • Packing up and backing up your files
    • Recovering lost files
    • Disk quota
    • Checking disk usage
    • Locating files in the system
    • Finding files in your home directory
    • Using find for useful tasks
  • Devices and Partitions
    • Introduction
    • Creating and Working with File Systems
    • df
    • lsblk
    • fdisk
    • mkfs
    • mount
  
  
• Advanced User's Guide
  • Customizing your shell and improving productivity
    • Startup or run control (rc) files
    • Changing your shell prompt
    • Setting the path: how the shell finds programs
    • Aliases
    • Customizing ls using aliases
    • Enhancing cd using a stack
    • Repeating and editing previous commands
  • Other useful commands
    • Text-based mail
    • Changing your personal information
    • Changing your login shell
    • Spell checking
    • Watching a command
  • Filters: cool objects
    • Character transliteration with tr
    • Comparing sorted file with comm
    • Stream editing with sed
    • String processing with awk
  • Processes and Pipes
    • Input-Output redirection
    • Processes
    • Playing Lego in Linux
  
  
• Shell Scripting
  • Introduction
  • Text Editors
    • Introduction
    • The Vim file editor
    • The GNU emacs file editor
  • Creating new commands
  • Command arguments and parameters
  • Program output as an argument
  • Shell metacharacters
  • Shell variables
  • Loops and conditional statements in shell programs
    • for loop
    • if statement
    • case statement
    • while loop
    • until loop
  • Arithmetic in shell scripts
  • Interactive programs in shell scripts
  • Useful commands for shell scripts
    • The basename command
    • The test command
  • Functions
  • Extended shell script examples
    • Printing with proper tab spaces
    • Simple test script
    • Changing file extensions in one fell swoop
    • Replacing a word in all files in a directory
    • Counting files greater than a certain size
    • Counting number of lines of code recursively
    • Backing up your files periodically
    • Backing up your files with minimal disk space
    • Watching if a user logs in or logs out
  
  
• Linux Desktop GUI
  • Introduction
  • Using the KDE Desktop
    • Cut and paste using a mouse
    • Working with the KDE desktop
    • Taking a Snapshot of your Desktop
    • Creating directories in the KDE file browser
    • Creating shortcuts on the KDE desktop
  • Commonly Used Applications
    • Using CDs and DVDs
    • Copying a directory to a CD or DVD
    • Burning CDs or DVDs
    • Viewing a collection of photos
    • Editing photos
    • Running remote graphical programs
  • Other useful GUI programs
    • Viewing postscript and PDF files
  
  
• Further Exploration
• Bibliography