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CUNIX

CUNIX (Columbia University UNIX) is the name of the cluster of login hosts run by CUNIX, and more generally the name of the larger collection of UNIX hosts AcIs manages including the servers for user files, mail, news, web pages, and other services. UNIX is an operating system for multiple-user or "timeshare" hosts.

You may not need to log in to CUNIX. Mail and news is now in many cases more easily done with PC software the interacts with the CUNIX servers in the background, letting you use the more familiar Windows or Macintosh style interface and simplifying issues like attachments and special fonts. We recommend Netscape Communicator for electronic mail.

If you use CUNIX for courses or other purposes, you should learn some basic UNIX commands. You probably need to do basic tasks like listing out your files, editing files, and changing permissions on files. You may want to learn how to read mail and news on CUNIX.

The default shell on CUNIX is bash (Bourne Again Shell). A shell is a program that interprets your commands and runs the appropriate programs. The bash shell has a prompt of $ when it is ready for commands. When you are told to "type this command" you type it at the shell prompt.

UNIX in general is case sensitive. Upper and lower case letters are considered to be different. Commands usually are all lower case. If you type the man command as Man you will be told the command was not found. Filenames like foo and Foo are different names because f and F are different.

References

Text editors: One web page tells you all about Pico,a simple text editor that is easy to learn. Emacs is a better text editor that is recommended for writing longer text and program code. There are entire books about Emacs.

Email: Pine is an easy to learn mail program that handles MIME attachments. MM is a more UNIX-like command-based mail program. Note that non-plain-text mail is better handled on a PC.

News: Pine also accesses Usenet news using the same interface as mail: you choose newsgroups to read like you choose mailboxes. trn is a command-line news reader that is faster than Pine.

Man Pages (On-line Programmer's Reference Manual): The man command shows virtual manual pages explaining how commands work. Try the command man man for more information about itself.

Reference Books. Many books are available about the UNIX shell and specific programs that run on UNIX systems.

Basic CUNIX commands web page.

If you have a specific UNIX question, call the Computing Help Line (854-1919) or send e-mail to consultant@columbia.edu..