Homework 1

Purpose: Familiarize with documentation, command line, copy and paste in a Unix/X-Windows environment.

1. Get an account on a Linux computer.

2. Login from the console in an X-Windows environment.

3. Start 3 terminal windows (Hint: dig through menus).

4. Start a web browser (Hint: dig through menus or use a command).

5. Use the command "xterm" (Hint: Ctrl-D or "exit" to exit).

6. Use the command "xterm &". What is the difference?

7. Try to find the manual page or documentation for the command "bash" (Hint: use google in the web browser, then try using "man bash" on the command line; what is the difference?)

8. Read the manual page of the command "ls" and use it with different options. What did you discover interesting?

9. Use the "Up arrow" and "Down arrow" keys to go through command history.

10. Copy and paste strings from one terminal to the other using the mouse buttons (Hint: middle mouse button pastes).

11. Copy and paste samples of the results of the above exercises in an email to florin@cmu.edu (Hint: you can use "pine" as terminal-oriented mail reader).

12. Paste https://www.python.org/ in you web browser location bar using the middle mouse button. (Hint: try using Ctrl-L and Del to clear address bar)

13. Try to identify the software project components described in class on the project at https://www.python.org/ or another software project of your choice.