Guide to Unix/Explanations

This part of the guide contains a list of various topics which introduce and explain the use and administration of Unix-like systems.

There is an attempt to organise the subpages into parts.

Part 1: Command Line

 * /Shell Prompt/ introducing the shell, commands, and arguments
 * /Quoting and Filename Expansion/
 * /Pipes and Job Control/
 * /Signals/
 * /Choice of Shell/
 * /Environment/ environment variables and process limits
 * /Connecting to Remote Unix/ accessing remote shells and files

Part 2: Common Programs

 * /Scheduling Jobs/ at, cron
 * /Introduction to Editors/ available text editors
 * more
 * less
 * chmod
 * chgrp
 * cut
 * sort
 * sed
 * awk
 * /bc/ utility for arbitrary-precision arithmetic
 * ../roff/ text formatting, often for manual pages

Part 3: Administration

 * /Becoming Root/ su and sudo for running commands as the root user
 * /Installing Packages/ binary packages from your OS-vendor

Part 4: Hardware

 * /Determining Hardware/ what hardware is my system using?
 * /Filesystems and Swap/ mounting disks, formatting and mounting disk images
 * /Partitioning Disks/ creating and editting partition maps
 * /Compact Discs/ playing audio, ripping with cdparanoia, burning with cdrecord

Part 5: Networking

 * /Interprocess Communication/ pipes, sockets, packets, local versus network
 * /Real Networking Interfaces/ Ethernet, PPP, wireless
 * /Fake Networking Interfaces/ loopback, bridges, encapsulation
 * This list needs more topics.

Part 6: Electronic Mail

 * /Mail Server Overview/ Incoming Mail, Outgoing Mail, Local Mail, Client Connectivity
 * /Mail Server Related Terminology/

Part 7: Security

 * /Firewalls/ How firewalls work and how to configure them

Part 8: Beyond This Book

 * /Finding Additional Help/ search engines and user groups