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I worked for Information Technology as a "Computer Wizard". My boss was Tom Neuhauser, the system administrator of worf. For the most part, I was involved with Internet software here on campus. I also use UNIX a lot.
Worf is running a new version of UNIX called BSD/OS 1.1. I have been using Worf since it was first built. As I used BSDI UNIX more and more, I found that a lot of things weren't the same as they were on AT&T UNIX (the UNIX version on spu1 and helios). I also found a lot of things that might qualify as "neat". That is, they were things that didn't exist in any way on the old UNIX but were nice to have.
As I found out more and more about this system, I thought that it would be nice if I could pass on what I had learned. I talked with Tom Neuhauser about it and we decided that this file would be a good solution.
These tips were originally a plain text file on Worf. After I wrote the first version I got a lot of favorable response. But I didn't have much time to follow up and worf's future was questionable. Now I am starting to learn how to use the World Wide Web and I decided that the tips could be put on the Web.
Many users sent me tips. I'll be adding some of them in the future. I also know I have lost some of the tips people sent me. I would appreciate it if other users would talk to me. Email me questions and I'll try to solve them. Or just email me tips that you have found. I'll be happy to put them here.
These tips also will cover a variety of user experience. If a tip is talking about something that you don't know about or don't care about, just go to the next one.
Enough talk, on with the tips.
UNIX is a powerful operating system that lets many people use a comuter at the same time. It has gained much popularity because it is available for many different types of computers and can easily be ported to new types of computers.
BSDI stands for Berkeley Systems Distribution Inc. This group recently took over the development of the main Berkeley version and turned it into a commercial product with much more support and called it BSD/OS. This is the version that runs on Worf. If you would like to know more about BSDI and their products, they have a World Wide Web page at http://www.bsdi.com/.
There is a quick and dirty solution to this and a longer, more permanent solution.
Quick and dirty - If you are just logging in quickly from a strange terminal, you may just want to use the quick and dirty solution. All you have to do is type
stty erase <BACKSPACE>
This tells Worf to use whatever your computer sends as the backspace key as the erase character. The only problem is that you have to do this every time you log in.
Longer and more permanant - A much better solution is to have your computer send the "correct" erase code. In most programs there should be an option screen for Terminal Setup. Look on this screen for an option like "Backspace key sends:". There should be two choices; Backspace or DEL. Choose Backspace and save this setup.
MS-Kermit is a little different. The Kermit command
set key \270 \8
has to be given to Kermit. This can be done by adding it to your MSCUSTOM.INI file with a text editor.
For those of you who have used spu1 or other AT&T UNIX computers, you will be glad to know that all that silliness about the backslash (\) and at sign (@) doesn't apply anymore. If you type an at sign, you get an at sign. If you type a backslash, you get a backslash. This should make typing Internet addresses much easier.
Part of what caused this is the interrupt and kill characters. The interrupt character interrupts whatever you are doing. If you accidentally run a program that you don't know how to quit, the interrupt character will stop the program. The kill character will cancel everything that you have typed on the command line and will cancel a few other things. On spu1, the interrupt character was the <DELETE> key and the kill character was the at sign <@>. This lead to a problem with typing Internet addresses. Everytime you typed an at sign, you would cancel the entire line. You had to "escape" the at sign by typing a backslash first.
The interrupt and kill characters are different on worf. Interrupt is ^C (Control-C) and kill is ^U (Control-U). This should interfere with typing less and be closer to what you are used to. You can even change this is you want to. The stty command will let you change these characters. For example, to change interrupt to the <DELETE> key and the kill to <@>, the command would be
stty intr <DELETE> kill @
NOTE: Press the <DELETE> key where it says <DELETE>. "^?" should appear on the screen on most terminals.
To change them back, the command would be
stty intr ^C kill ^U
NOTE: For the stty command, to indicate <Control-C> type the <^> key and then <C>, not <Control-C>.
When I created new scripts, I found a problem. After I created the script, I couldn't run it. But after I logged out and in again, I could run it. It turns out that the C Shell does something called hashing your path.
When you log in, the C Shell finds every file in your path and remembers where it is. This way, it can run the files very quickly without looking for them. The problem is, when a file is added in your path, the hash tables don't know about it. You have to update the tables. You can do this by simply typing "rehash". This updates the hash tables so the new file can be found.
If you would rather not have your path hashed, just use the "unhash" command. This will turn off hashing. Your programs will start a little slower though.
If the files ".project" and ".plan" exist in a user's home directory, they will be displayed along with the usual information. ".project" and ".plan" are just text files. They can contain anything you want. Traditionally the ".project" file is one line and the ".plan" file ranges from a few lines to several pages.
To get an idea of what some more ambitious people have done with their ".plan" and ".project" files, run the "fingerinfo" command (Just type "fingerinfo" at the UNIX prompt (no quotes)). FingerInfo is a menu of interesting addresses to finger. It is compiled and regularly updated by a Milwaukee resident named Scott Yanoff.
To create your own ".project" and ".plan" files, just type "pico .project" or "pico .plan" at the UNIX prompt. This will start the PICO text editor. Then you can just type whatever you want for your ".project" and ".plan" files.
There is one last step to making your files available. You have tell UNIX that you want the entire world to be able to see those files. The command "chmod go+r .plan .project" will make those files available for the world to view.
To use the man pages, just type "man <command name>". For example, "man finger" will bring up all the options for the finger command.
One of the most useful man pages is probably the csh man page. It covers all the commands of the C Shell (the default shell on worf). Many of these commands are different than the old Bourne Shell (sh) that you may be used to. Take a look. It could help you a lot.
You are also limited to 750 files, with a temporary limit of 1000.
To find out how close to you limits you are, just type "quota". You will be shown how much disk space you are using, how many files you own, and the limits for you.
To run PICO, just type "pico". If you want to, you can also type the file name ("pico my-file").
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