Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
103 lines (60 loc) · 3.97 KB

ubuntu.md

File metadata and controls

103 lines (60 loc) · 3.97 KB

Ubuntu Essentials

We work in Ubuntu throughout this course, and as such, ou will need to develop a working knowledge of GNU/Linux in order to succeed. This section is intended to inform you of the most basic GNU/Linux concepts and operations that you must become proficient with. The instructional team assumes previous working proficiency of a Unix shell environment, either via GNU/Linux or another Unix variant, such as Mac OS.

Bash

We will work from the the Bash shell, the default shell environment for GNU/Linux.

Note: The terms “shell”, “console”, “terminal”, and “command line” may be used interchangeably throughout this course).

Nearly all servers in modern hyper-scale cloud providers run GNU/Linux, and generally, these systems run “headless” and lack the ability to render to full GUI interface. Working on such systems is typically limited to using ssh to tunnel into a shell environment, and then issuing commands to accomplish your goals. As such, mastering the GNU/Linux shell is an essential skill for modern software professionals. The earlier you adopt and practice working with the console, the faster you will develop in all aspects of this course and the more successful you will be overall. You will not be able to successfully complete the course work if you are dependent on graphical interfaces!

The instructional team assumes that you are already possess a working proficiency of this environment.

Package Management

In the process of setting up your Ubuntu environment, you will need to install several pieces of software. Ubuntu uses the Advanced Packaging Tool (apt) to install software. To install a package, use the apt-get command. The syntax for installing a package is as follows:

sudo apt install <packagename>

To get help information on apt, refer to the man pages on apt or apt-get or use the following command:

apt –help

To install gcc and make on Ubuntu

sudo apt install build-essential

To install git on Ubuntu

sudo apt install git

To install emacs and vim on Ubuntu

sudo apt install emacs vim

Terminal-based Text Editors

There are a number of text editors available for GNU/Linux. The two main terminal-based text editors focused on software development are vim and emacs. These two programs have comparable features, but they use very different interfaces, and, similar to “tabs versus spaces,” they have been a perennial source of disagreement between developers.

Even if you prefer graphical editors, such as VSCode, it is essential that you become sufficiently proficient in either vim or emacs to be productive in a headless environment.

Review Questions

  1. What is a path?

  2. In a path, what do the following mean?

    1. .
    2. ..
    3. ~

  3. How does a relative path differ from an absolute path?

  4. What are wildcards?

  5. What does the shell command ls do?

  6. What does the shell command cd do?

  7. What does the shell command mkdir do?

  8. What does the shell command rm do?

  9. Why should you be extremely careful using the rm command with wildcards?

  10. What does the shell command cp do?

  11. What does the shell command mv do?

  12. What does the shell command grep do?

  13. What does the shell command cat do?

  14. What does the shell command sudo do?

  15. What do either of the shell commands vi or emacs do?

  16. What is a pipeline and how is it used on the shell?

  17. What is awk?

  18. What is a package manager?

Reference Cards