Linux A practical introduction

1)Background and Getting Started Linux is an operating system with multiple providers Red Hat/CentOS (our version) Ubuntu etc. Although “GUI” tools exist for many tasks, we rely on the command line interface

2) Access It’s possible to sit at a machine and log in, but remote access is also common (“NX”) Each account has access permissions, and “groups” provide for shared permissions

3) Command shells There are multiple types of “shell” (command line interpreters): bash, csh, tcsh, etc. By default our systems use “bash”

4) Basic commands There are a few key terminal commands: cd – change directory ls – list directory contents mv – rename a file/directory cp – copy a file man – read documentation on a command (e.g., “man man”)

5) Other useful commands emacs – a text editor mkdir – create a directory rm – remove a file w – command to view users/load more – page through a text file matlab – launch MATLAB