Unix | Arts Computing Office | University of Waterloo

Unix is an operating system that uses a command-line interface instead of a Graphic User Interface (GUI), like Windows. It is a powerful and stable operating system.

Logging onto a Unix account

Contact the Arts Computing Office (ACO) if you are not sure if you have a Unix account.
To log in:
1. Run a Secure Shell Client (SSH) program such as PuTTY (available on all Nexus machines under Start Menu/Programs/Internet Tools/Remote Login).
2. Enter the server/host name and click the Open button.
3. Enter your userid and password when prompted.

General session commands

Command	Command Action
logout	Finish Unix session ("exit" can also be used)
clear	Clear the terminal screen
passwd	Changes your password
history	contains in its storage all the previous commands you typed at the shell prompt
! command	rerun command
!!	rerun last command
man command	manual for Unix commands (note: while informative, these can be very long)
man -k command	look up a command (used only in Watarts) ?
command \| more	scrolls a page one at a time
cal year	prints a calendar for current month, or the year specified
date	displays the date
stty erase (press the Backspace key)	uses "backspace" to delete letters or characters (instead of "delete")

File commands

Command	Command Action
ls	list all files in a directory
lc	list all files and shows files and directories seperately; this is especially useful as Unix files don't always have extensions as in Windows, and it might be hard to other differentiate between files and directories
ls -a	list files, including .xxx (configuration) files
ls -t	list files by time last modified, most recent first
ls -alt	list all files in long format, sorted by time last modified and with more informative information such as file permissions and date last modified
Ls -ch*	list files whose names start with ch (can look for any expession or characters)
cd directory name	move to the specified directory; cd .. moves to the directory directly above your last one
pwd	report the directory you are currently in
mkdir new directory name	make a directory
cd directory	change directory
rmdir directory	remove directory
cp -r directory1 directory2	copies directory1 and everything in it to directory2
du	outputs number of kilobytes used by each subdirectory (useful in deciding which files to delete)
quota -v	checks allocated amount of disk space and how much has been used up to date
df	checks space left on file system
rm filename	delete a file
mv file1 file2	rename or move file1 to file2
cp file1 file2	copy file1 to file2
wc -w filename	counts the number of words in a file named filename
grep keyword filename	searches through a text file for a keyword or an expression
spell filename	check spelling of file

Printing command

Command	Command Action
lpr filename	prints filename to default printer