Typing Commands

Once you've seen the prompt character, you can type commands, which are requests that the system do something. Commands are practically always typed in lower-case. Typing "date" followed by the [RETURN] key will produce something like Fri Sep 4 13:57:55 PDT 1992 After any system command, you must press [RETURN]. The [RETURN] key won't be mentioned again, but it has to be there at the end of each line.

If you make a mistake typing the command name, and refer to a non-existent command, you will be told. For example, if you type "daze" you will be told

daze: Command not found. Of course, if you inadvertently type the name of some other command, it will run, with more or less mysterious results.

Unix commands usually take the form:

where "-options" is a list of the options as shown on the manual page, and 'filename' is the name of the file upon which you want the command to act. The list of options is usually preceded by a "-". You will not have to specify options or file names with all commands. Options are usually single letters which will change the default behavior of a program.

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