UNIX is the most commonly-used operating system in the world. Once considered too arcane and difficult for the creative user to learn, it is now used daily by millions of Internet users and developers. It's the system the Internet is built on. The task of learning UNIX, with its seemingly complicated commands and hundreds of different flavors, can seem daunting without a straightforward guide. UNIX: Visual QuickStart Guide is the easiest way to get going with UNIX. The unique Visual QuickStart presentation strips away the mystery and technical jargon that surround this system. Simple step-by-step instructions, backed up with graphics and illustrations, guide readers through commands and applications both common and obscure. Beginners will applaud theVisual QuickStart Guide's uncomplicated approach, and seasoned UNIX users will find it to be an invaluable reference.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. 1. Getting Started with UNIX. Connecting to the UNIX system. Logging in. Changing your password with passwd. Listing directories and files with ls. Changing directories with cd. Finding yourself with pwd. Piping input and output. Redirecting output. Using wildcards. Viewing file contents with more. Displaying file contents with cat. Exploring the system. Getting help with man. Logging out 2. Using Directories and Files. Creating directories with mkdir. Creating files with touch. Copying directories and files with cp. Listing files and directories with ls (more goodies). Moving files with mv. Removing files with rm. Removing directories with rmdir. Finding forgotten files with find. Linking with ln (hard links). Linking with ln -s (soft links) 3. Working with Your Shell. Discovering what shell you're using. Understanding shells and options. Changing your shell with chsh. Changing your shell temporarily. Using command completion in the bash shell. Viewing session history in the bash shell. Using command completion in the ksh shell. Viewing session history in the ksh shell. Viewing session history in the csh shell. Changing your identity with su. Fixing terminal settings with stty. Exiting the shell 4. Creating and Editing Files. Choosing an editor. Starting pico and dabbling with it. Saving in pico. Cutting and pasting text blocks in pico. Checking spelling in pico. Getting help in pico. Exiting pico. Starting vi and dabbling with it. Saving in vi. Adding and deleting text in vi. Importing files into vi. Searching and replacing in vi. Exiting (quitting) vi 5. Controlling Ownership & Permissions. Understanding file ownership and permissions. Finding out who owns what. Finding out which group you're in. Changing the group association of files. and directories with chgrp. Changing ownership of files and directories with chown. Changing permissions with chmod. Translating mnemonic permissions. to numeric permissions. Changing permission defaults with umask 6. Manipulating Files. Counting files and their contents with wc. Viewing file beginnings with head. Viewing file endings with tail. Finding text with grep. Using regular expressions with grep. Using other examples of regular expressions. Making global changes with sed. Changing files with awk. Comparing files with cmp. Finding differences in files with diff. Finding differences in files with sdiff. Sorting files with sort. Eliminating duplicates with uniq. Redirecting to multiple locations with tee 7. Getting Information About the System. Getting system information with uname. Viewing file systems with df. Determining disk usage with du. Finding out file types with file. Finding out about users with finger. Learning who else is logged in with who. Learning who else is logged in with w. Getting information about your userid with id 8. Configuring Your UNIX Environment. Understanding your UNIX environment. Discovering your current environment variables. Adding or changing environment variables. Looking at your bash configuration files. Adding to your bash path. Changing your bash prompt. Looking at your ksh configuration files. Changing your ksh path. Changing your ksh prompt. Looking at your csh configuration files. Changing your csh path. Changing your csh prompt. Setting aliases with alias 9. Running Scripts and Programs. Scheduling one-time jobs with at. Scheduling regularly occurring jobs with crontab. Suspending jobs. Checking job status with jobs. Running jobs in the background with bg. Running jobs in the foreground with fg. Controlling job priority with nice. Timing jobs with time. Finding out what processes are running with ps. Deleting processes with kill 10. Writing Basic Scripts. Creating a shell script. Running a shell script. Making a script executable. Jump-starting scripts with history. Embedding commands. Looping your scripts. Creating if-then statements. Accepting command line input in your scripts. Accepting input while a script is running. Debugging scripts 11. Sending and Reading E-mail. Choosing an e-mail program and. getting started. Reading e-mail with pine. Sending e-mail with pine. Customizing pine. Reading e-mail with elm. Sending e-mail with elm. Reading e-mail with mail. Sending e-mail with mail. Creating a signature file. Forwarding incoming messages. Announcing an absence with vacation 12. Accessing the Internet. Getting familiar with UNIX-Internet lingo. Logging in to remote systems with telnet. Communicating with other users using write. Communicating with other users using talk. Getting files from the Internet with ftp. Sharing files on the Internet with ftp. Surfing the Web with lynx. Checking connections with ping. Tracing connections with traceroute. Matching domain names with IP numbers. using nslookup. Choosing a News reader. Reading News with pine. Reading News with tin 13. Working with Encoded &. Compressed Files. Encoding files with uuencode. Decoding files with uudecode. Archiving with tar. Unarchiving files with tar. Compressing files with compress. Uncompressing files with uncompress. Zipping a file or directory with gzip. Unzipping a gzip file with gunzip. Zipping files and directories with zip. Unzipping zipped files with unzip. Combining commands 14. Installing Your Own Software. Understanding UNIX software installation. Finding UNIX software. Downloading, placing, and decompressing. software. Configuring software. Compiling and installing with make install 15. Using Handy Utilities. Calendaring with cal. Setting up calendar reminders. Calculating with bc. Checking spelling with ispell. Keeping a record of your session with script 16. Sensational UNIX Tricks. Sorting and filing mail with procmail. Searching and replacing throughout. multiple documents with sed. Generating reports with awk. Using input to customize your environment. Using ROT13 encoding with sed. Embedding ROT13 encoding in a shell script Appendix A. UNIX Reference. Appendix B. What's What and What's Where. Appendix C. Command Flags. Index.