Unix Fundamentals

This course provides a basic introduction to the Unix system and skills for using it. Emphasis is placed on providing experience with the basic Unix facilities and commands in relation to data manipulation, shell programming, and text editors. Appreciation of the Unix tools philosophy is taught, enabling students to understand most Unix commands.

Participants must have experience programming in a high-level language. Some experience with other operating systems is advantageous but not essential.

On completion of this course, the student should be able to

• Use a variety of basic Unix commands
• Create, access, and manipulate data under Unix using the standard editors and other important Unix tools
• Program the command interpreter - the Korn shell
• Recognize the interactive features of the Korn shell
• Describe how the Unix file system works

5 Days

Instructor-led course, with practical computer-based exercises.

• Unix Overview
  • Unix history and features
• Introductory Unix Commands
  • Command syntax and execution
  • Processes
  • Documentation
• Introduction to Editing with vi
  • Using basic vi features
  • vi modes
  • Using advanced vi features
  • Using colon commands
  • Global commands
  • File manipulation
• The Unix File System
  • File system components
  • Managing files
  • Moving, renaming, and copying files
  • Listing files and directory contents
  • File system components
  • File system hierarchy
  • Working with directories
  • Protecting files
• The Korn Shell Command Interpreter
  • Using basic shell features
  • Filters and pipelines
  • Filename generation and metacharacters
  • Escaping special characters
  • Login start-up files
  • Background processes
  • Job control
  • Aliases
  • Command-line editing
• The Korn Shell Command Interpreter
  • Advanced features of vi
• Everyday Unix Tools
  • File manipulation tools
  • Getting information about files
  • Comparing files
  • Operating on file contents
  • Miscellaneous tools
  • Evaluating expressions
  • Finding files
  • Using electronic mail
  • Combining tools
• Korn Shell Programming
  • Writing and running shell scripts
  • Interpretation and substitution
  • Command substitution
  • Shell variables and variable substitution
  • Arithmetic with shell variables
  • Positional parameters, shell parameters
  • Blank interpretation and comments
  • Getting user input - read
  • For, while, and until loops, if statements
  • Korn shell extended test facilities
  • Conditionals
  • Here documents
  • Subshell type designator
• General Purpose Tools
  • sed
  • awk
• Software Development Tools
  • ar
  • sccs
  • make

Any Unix system that provides the Korn shell. The systems should be able to load a 3.5” DOS-formatted solution disk.