Unix Tools 2009–10
Principal lecturer: Dr Markus Kuhn Taken by: Part IB Syllabus
This non-examinable 10-h lecture course takes you onto a quick tour
through a few important and highly useful Unix development tools
including the shell, make, Perl and LaTeX. It takes place 2009
October 8 – November 10, 10:00–11:00 in Lecture Theatre 1 of the
William Gates Building.
Study materials
All in PDF for
easy printing:
Related links
- Single UNIX Specification (shell
command language, utility
conventions, sh,
make)
- GNU Tools Source Code:
bash,
coreutils,
make,
rcs
- Subversion manual
- Csh
programming considered harmful – a periodic posting by Tom
Christiansen to comp.unix.shell
- Related FAQs
- Perl documentation, Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
(CPAN), Perl.com, Perl Mongers
- TeX Users Group, The UK TeX Archive (FAQ)
- MATLAB documentation
- Using
Computer Laboratory MATLAB licences from home
Most of the tools discussed in the course can be explored and used
on the PWF
Linux installation in the Computer Laboratory’s Teaching Lab,
which is currently a customized version of openSUSE Linux 10.3. However,
due to home directories residing on a Novell server, PWF Linux has a
few quirks and
restrictions compared to a typical Unix or Linux system. Problems
with PWF Linux should be reported to
pwf-linux@ucs.cam.ac.uk [but feel free to cc to me
(mgk25) as well].
Installing Unix/Linux on your own PC
I like to encourage students who own a PC and are interested in
Unix to try out one of the various excellent freely or cheaply
available Unix-like operating systems:
Linux
(Ubuntu/Kubuntu,
Novell/openSUSE,
Debian,
RedHat/CentOS/Fedora,
Gentoo,
Mandriva,
Knoppix,
etc.),
FreeBSD,
NetBSD,
OpenBSD.
In particular, the Computing
Service’s Unix Support
runs an FTP
and NFS
server with all the files and updates for the latest SUSE, Fedora,
Debian, and Ubuntu Linux distributions.
The following steps outline briefly, how to
install SUSE
Linux on your PC. (The instructions and links are for openSUSE
Linux 11.1, which is what the PWF uses in 2009–10, but should work
similarly for future releases):
First make sure you have space for a generous new harddisk
partition. While a minimal system can be installed in as little as 500
MB, partition sizes of 1–4 GB are recommended
for a full-featured system. If your entire harddisk is already used by
another operating system, you may want to reduce the size of an
existing partition first. This can be done without reformatting, using
tools such as PartitionMagic or GNU Parted.
Then there are three options for getting the software onto your PC:
Directly from the network:
- Go to the openSUSE
download page, select your type of computer (32-bit PC, 64-bit PC,
PowerPC), installation medium: network, download method: standard.
- If your PC is connected to
the Cambridge University
Data Network, then note the filename of the offered "Mini CD" ISO
image. Instead of downloading it from the provided link, get it from
the local
Computing Service mirror directory. Burning CD-Rs can be done
using any CD writing application, on a Linux machine for example with
with xcdroast, k3b, or the good
old cdrecord.
- After having booted that CD, configure your network address and
then configure as the “installation source medium” the Computing
Service server that stores the remaining installation files:
- protocol: NFS
- server name: nfs-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk
- directory: linux/opensuse/11.1/repo/oss
(addons: linux/opensuse/11.1/repo/non-oss)
- To perform online updates after the initial installation is
complete, add in YaST as the Installation Source also the
local Computing Service mirror:
- protocol: HTTP
- server name: nfs-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk
- directory: pub/linux/suse/update/11.1
- More information can be found on the
openSUSE download,
Internet install
and documentation
pages.
Using the Computing Service as an installation source will
not create network traffic outside Cambridge, for which your college
would otherwise
be charged.
If you are not on the University network,
use the regular download
site.
From self-made DVD: Alternatively, you can burn yourself
the full
installation DVD
from the ISO images provided by the Computing Service. There is also
a Installing
Novell SUSE Linux in Cambridge page there.
From borrowed DVD: you may find that fellow students have
already an installation DVD that you can use.
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