Unix (and Linux)
An understanding of how to use the Unix operating system has emerged as a fundamental computing skill.
- Linux (a variety of Unix) is the operating system that is used on the machines in Phelps 3525 and the CSIL lab.
- Linux is the basis of WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
- MacOS is a variant of BSD Unix
Most of what we’ll be using related to Unix/Linux in this course actually pertains to command line tools that you access from the bash shell. This includes commands such as ls, mkdir, cp, mv, etc.
While these commands are associated with Unix, because they originally appeared on Unix systems, in fact, they have been ported to many other systems as well. Cygwin is a package for Windows that allows users to run many programs associated with Unix on Windows systems.
You can also get many of these tools by using a bash shell for Windows such as the git bash shell that comes with Git for Windows, or the bash shell that is being provided with Windows 10.
Learning Basic Unix Commands
- This video tutorial by Ryan He was developed under the supervision of Prof. Ziad Matni, and is a nice introduction to basic Unix commands if you need a refresher, or if you are joining CS156 as a transfer student from a school where Unix was not used.
- This PDF goes along with the video.