Artifice, Inc.

Basic Unix Commands for Running Radiance

These notes introduce a basic set of Unix "C Shell" commands to work with. The commands shown should be quite sufficient for normal use of Radiance with DesignWorkshop.

Basic Commands

Look up a new command -

man command

Create a new directory -

mkdir directory

Switch down to a sub-directory -

cd directory

Switch up one directory level -

cd ..

Go to your home directory -

cd 

List the files in the current directory -

ls 

Detailed listing of the files in the current directory -

ls -la

Delete a file -

rm filename

Log out of the terminal session -

logout 

See how much disk space you have left -

quota -v

See what's running on the system -

ps -a

      - or -

top

Compress files in Unix to save disk space -

compress filename

Uncompress previously files in Unix -

uncompress filename

See where you are in the directory system -

pwd 

List a text file to the screen, page by page -

more filename

List only the last few lines of a text file to the screen -

tail filename

Detailed listing of all the files in your whole directory tree, 
listed page by page with more -

ls -laR | more

Detailed listing of all the files in your whole directory tree, 
listed into a new text file -

ls -laR > filename

Delete an empty directory -

rmdir directory_name

Some Useful Though Not Basic Commands

Find someone else's directory on a Unix host -

cat /etc/passwd | grep username

Switch to someone else's directory on a Unix host -

cd  ~/username

Some Basic "vi" Commands - (for those impaired in U.I. selectivity)

Open a file to edit with vi -

vi filename

Save your edits and quit vi -

[esc]
 :
 ZZ

Quit vi without saving your edits -

[esc]
 q!

To move to a new place in the file, to insert or delete text, use the arrow
keys.

Start inserting text in vi -

i text

Stop inserting text in vi -

[esc]

Delete a character in vi -

x

Delete a word in vi -

dw

Delete a line in vi -

dd

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