Chapter 1. Unix Review

Unix's power, flexibility, and stability have kept it running the Internet for the past 30 or so years. Its features, ability to scale with almost any application, strong security, and support for multiple users have made it a benchmark that other operating systems are held against. Unix is one of the most popular operating systems in the world for servers, workstations, ridiculously powerful mainframes, and even desktop (or laptop!) computers.

In Unix, everything is a file. You must be able to navigate the file system in order to find what you want. Almost every Unix application has text-based configuration files, so all you need is a basic editor to reconfigure the system.

Assuming that you've got access to a running system, this chapter will provide a quick review of some essential Unix survival skills. If you're already adept at using Unix, you can skim through this information for anything that catches your interest.

If you're not already a Unix user, you'll want to start with Unix: Visual QuickStart Guide, 2nd Edition, by Deborah S. Ray and Eric J. Ray, also published by Peachpit Press. Follow along, try things out, explore, and experiment until you're comfortable moving through the file system and manipulating files. Once you're familiar with Unix basics, then you can come back to this book.

The information in this chapter applies to all flavors of UnixLinux, FreeBSD, Solaris, the Mac OS X command-line environment, and Cygwin under Windowseven though the responses and prompts might be slightly different.