Think UNIX

Jon Lasser is a Unix systems administrator with six years of Linux and Unix experience and is responsible for several hundred Unix-based systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He speaks at numerous conferences on the Bastille Linux Project, for which he is development coordinator. He can be reached at jon@umbc.edu.

Introduction.


About This Book.

I. UNIX CONCEPTS.

1. Unix Documentation.


Words of Warning. Reading Man Pages. Documentation Hide-and-Go-Seek. Suggested Exercises.

2. Files and Processes.


Files. Processes.

3. Redirection and Pipes.


Redirection. Pipes.

4. Networking.


A Broad Overview of Networking. Talking with Other Machines. Using Machines Remotely.

5. vi, Dotfiles, and Regular Expressions.


Surviving vi. Thriving in vi. Regular Expressions.

II. SHELL CONCEPTS.

6. Muddling Through Shells.


Shell Wars. Fixing Mistakes. Job Control.

7. Variables and Quoting.


Variables. Practice Problems. Quoting. Practice Problems.

8. Conditional Execution and Loops.


Sequential Execution. Conditional Execution. Practice Problems. Loops. Practice Problems.

9. Shell Scripts and More.


Grouping Commands. Aliases and Functions. Practice Problems. Shell Scripts. Practice Problems.

III. X WINDOW SYSTEM CONCEPTS.

10. Thinking Like X.


What X Does Differently. Nuts and Bolts. Desktop Environments. Something Useful: xterm. Suggested Exercises.

11. Configuring X.


Starting X. Command-Line Options. Suggested Exercises. X Resources. Suggested Exercises. Color Names and Numbers. Fonts. Listing Fonts. A Few Final Words.

IV. APPENDIXES.

A. Answers to Practice Problems.
B. Glossary and References.
Index.