Lab #1 An Introduction to Unix and Operating Systems

Getting Started

This lab is to provide a tutorial for the unix operating system. The tutorial is provided online.

 

1. To get started you will need to open your web browser:

 

% mozilla &

 

2. Open the webpage at the following URL:

 

http://www.spelman.edu/~compsci/unix

 

3. Read the first 2 sections, Typographical Conventions and Introduction to The UNIX operating system. Also read the history of the Unix operating system found at the bottom of the page.

 

4. Now complete Tutorials 1-8 and answer questions in the deliverables section. The tutorial may be familiar to you, but be sure to complete it all.

Lab Sessions

This lab is to be done outside of class.

Deliverables

Answer the following questions as you do the tutorials. Your answers should be clear and concise. Please type your answers and submit them via webct.

 

1. Who are the original designers of the Unix Operating System and where did they work?

 

2. What made Unix unique at the time it was created?

 

3. When was unix born?

 

4. What does the following command do?

% ls ~

 

5. In exercise 2a, show the command you used.

 

6. How many lines does the science.txt file have? How many words?

 

7. What did ls ?list output?

 

8. In Exercise 5a, what permissions did you decide to change? What command

did you use to make that change? (show the before and after results using ls -l)

 

9. Is it possible to use the kill command to kill other user's processes? Why or

 why not? (hint: look at 5.1 ideas)

 

10. Using compress and ls -l, show the before and after in the file size of science.txt.

 

11. What shell variable contains the directories where commands are stored?

 

12. The name of your shell is csh; use the web to determine how it is pronounced and why it has this name.

 

13. The commands used by the shell are interfaces to the various subsystem of the OS.  On page 5 of your book there is figure 1.3 Using the System Software and page 102 of your book is a figure 3.10 Logical OS Organization. Read the sections General System Software (pages 4-7) and  Software Modularization (pages 101-103) and then try to group the commands from this tutorial according to the following categories:

compiler     libraries     applications    process manager    memory manager    file manager   device manager

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Some commands may interact will several component and so list them under each column. An example is the ÒlsÓ command which interacts with the file manager to list the files. And so the table will have:

 

compiler     libraries     applications    process manager    memory manager    file manager   device manager

                                                                                                                                                            ls

 

After your table is complete, pick any 3 entries and describe how and why you put them underneath the columns you did. For example, ls is placed under file manager because it must list out the files in the current directory, and so it must obtain the file names and other information from the file manager and then display the list on the screen.

 

Submission

Log onto webct, and go to the assignments area for CIS343 and click on the assignment and submit your word or pdf file.