Unix
Introduction
Unix is an operating system which in various versions (Linux, MacOS, etc) runs on many of the world's machines. It runs our centralized services and is on most of our teaching system machines. See wikipedia for a history of its development. It can be used from a command line or by using icons and windows. From this page you can find out about our Unix-based machines, look at our introductory documentation, and read about Unix elsewhere
Local introductory documentation
- Introduction for New Users (a handout that all new users get)
- A short Unix crib
- The DPO set-up (some background information on what the machines do)
- Our Central Computing System
- An Introduction to the "Teaching System"
- Unix from the command line, includes a list of common commands.
- The University's Thirty Useful Unix Commands
- Customising
- Unix Myths
- Local frequently asked questions about files and programs.
The Shell
Whenever you login to a Unix system you are placed in a program called the shell (the "command line interpreter"). Commands can be assembled into a file to form programs called shell scripts.
- Writing Shell Scripts (a talk - CUED)
- Writing Shell Scripts (a handout - CUED)
- Korn Shell (ksh) Programming (Philip Brown)
- Linux Shell Scripting Tutorial - A Beginner's handbook
- AWK programming (Philip Brown)
- sed crib sheet
- Text processing tools (University Computing Service's Unix Support)
- The University's computing service offers a course on shell scripts. Extensive course notes are online - see Simple Shell Scripting for Scientists
- Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
General information sources
- a Unix time-line
- UNIX Introduction (Surrey University)
- Getting Started with Linux (from Linux Online)
- University Computing Service's Unix Support
Advanced Resources
- Unix Tools (Markus Kuhn and A C Norman) - or see the slides. shell, make, Perl and LaTeX are covered.
- iTunes has several Linux-related podcasts - for example, there's Going Linux
- Memory optimisation
- Unix groups and file permissions
- Unix Links and Filesystems
- Unix Multi-Process Programming and Inter-Process Communications (IPC)
- Fork and Exec (CUED)
- Cache diagnosis (CUED)
- Unix Signals and Forking
- Introduction To Unix Signals Programming
- linux shared libraries
- Parsing arithmetic expressions - Bison and Flex
- The Lex & Yacc page
- Parallel Programming
- Parallel Programming - Basic Theory For The Unwary
Sources of Unix
- SUN
- Linux - Our linux page (linux is a free Unix for PCs).
- The MDP resource CD
- Apple OSX