The main goals for this lab are:
The computers in the lab rooms (Park 230 and 231) are dual booted with Windows 10 and Ubuntu (a version of linux). This means that you can use either the Windows or Linux operating systems (OS). For this course, we will be using Linux.
You should have received an email from David Diaz with your credentials to the Computer Science lab machines. If you did not receive credentials from him, immediately stop by his office in Park 294.
TODO 1: Log into the Linux (Ubuntu) OS using the credentials you received from David. Note: These are not your BMC/HC credentials that you normally use.
After logging in, click on the grid on the bottom left of the screen. This will launch a screen showing all the applications. In the search bar on top, type terminal, and then click on the application. This will launch the terminal. In this semester we will be working primarily in the terminal.
As soon as the terminal application launches, you should see a black screen. This is where you will type command line commands. For now, we haven’t covered any commands in detail so just type anything into the terminal.
Note: there is a difference between the terms terminal, command line, and shell, but we will be using them interchangeably. See GeekForGeeks if you are curious about the differences.
To run a command in the terminal, click Enter. After typing anything into the terminal (here I mean actually mean anything), click Enter.
TODO: Question 1.1: After you click Enter, what does the terminal tell you?
You can completely interact with your computer using just the terminal! When a new account is created for you on any computer system, you should always change your password.
TODO: Change your password! In terminal, type the command psswd and then press Enter and then follow the instructions to change your password.
All of the text thats on the left of where you are typing commands is called the prompt. You should notice that there are two words in the prompt that are seperated by an @ symbol.
For example, my prompt says apoliak@tsunami:~$.
TODO: Question 1.2: What are the two words in your prompt? What does the first word indicate (the word infront of the @)? What does the second word indicate (the word after the @)?
Now we are ready to start using command line arguments. We will be using these command lines today:
pwd commandThe first command we’ll look at is pwd. This command prints the __p__ath to the __w__orking __d__irectory.
Computers are sturctured in a directory hierarchy where directories can contain other directories or files. A directory is just another way of saying a folder.
Run the command pwd (this means type pwd in the command line and click Enter - we’ll be moving to this terminology).
TODO Question 1.3: What gets printed out? What do you think it means?
ls commandThe next command will look at is ls. Instead of us first describing this command, we’ll let you try it out yourself. Run the command ls.
TODO: Question 1.4: What do you see printed out on in the terminal? What do you think all of that means?
We can add arguments to the ls command. After typing in ls, type the output of the pwd command. For example, I would run the following command:
ls /home/apoliak/
TODO: Question 1.5: When you run ls with the path to your working directory, what do you see? Do you see anything different than before when you ran just ls? Why or why not?
We can pass the output from one command as an argument to another command by using the | symbol.
Run the following command
pwd | ls
TODO: Question 1.6: What do you see? Do you see anything different than before when you ran just ls?
Why or why not?
So far we’ve used ls to look at the files and folders in our home directory. A home directory is where all the files and folders that belong to a specific user exists.
TODO: Look carefully again at the command line prompt. At the end of the line after the name of the machine you are working on, you should see two characters. What symbols do you see? One of those represents your home directory - which one do you think it might be?
We can answer this question by using the ls command.
TODO: Run the ls command twice, each time add one of the characters/symbols as an argument to ls. For example, if the characters were A and B (they are not), you would run
ls A
ls B
The output of running ls with each character would give you a hint of which of the two symbols represents your home directory.
TODO Question 1.7: So, which of the two characters/symbols represent your home directory?
So far we used ls to look at files in our own directory. When we run the command ls /home/<USERNAME> (here
TODO Question 1.8: If we wanted to see what files exist in the Downloads directory but using an absolute path, what argument would we pass to ls?
From pwd, we see that the path to our home directory was /home/<USERNAME>.
TODO Question 1.9: How do you think we could use ls to find out what other users have an account on the CS lab machines?
We can also use a relative path. From your own directory, run the following command:
ls ../
TODO Question 1.10: What do you think that did? What do you think ../ means?
cd commandThe next command will look at is cd, which stands for change directory.
Like ls, you can pass an argument to the cd command. Here the argument we pass in is the directory we want to move to.
TODO Question 1.11: Run the command cd Downloads/.
What changed in the command line prompt? What do you think that tells us?
We can also run cd without any arguments.
TODO Question 1.12: Run cd without any arguments.
Based on the prompt, what directory do you think we are now in?
TODO Question 1.13: Think about the following command: cd cs113. What do you think will happen if we run this command?
TODO Question 1.14: Now run cd cs113. Did we move into that directory, why or why not?
mkdir commandWe can create new directories in the command line using the command mkdir.
TODO Question 1.15: Run mkdir without any arguments. Were you able to create a new directory? If not, why not?
TODO Question 1.16: You should notice an error message. Read the error message. Are there any new technical terms in the error message? What do you think it means?
TODO Question 1.17: The error message should also tell you an option or flag to use with the mkdir that can help you figure out how to use mkdir. We’ll use the term flag and option interchangably here. What is that specific flag?
Next, use that flag to read the instructions to figure out how to create a new directory using mkdir.
TODO Question 1.18: There is another flag that will tell us the version of mkdir. Based on the results from running mkdir with that flag, what version number is the mkdir on the CS lab machines? Also, who is the author?
TODO Question 1.19: Use mkdir to create a new directory called cs113. Using a command that we’ve seen so far in today’s lab, how can we determine that the directory cs113 was indeed created?
Its a good idea to stay organized through out the course. You will be writing a lot of programs across many homeworks, labs, and in-class demo sessions. Therefore, we will now create that structure.
TODO: Using mkdir, cd, and ls, create the following folders and subfolders in cs113/. Tabs indicate that a folder is within another folder.
cs113/
labs/
lab00/
lab01/
lab02/
...
lab12/
homeworks/
hw00/
hw01/
hw02/
...
hw12/
demos/
For the rest of this lab, you should be working in the labs/lab00/ directory.
Checkpoint: Make sure a TA or instructor has checked your answers once you get to this part of thee lab.
wget commandWe are now going to start looking at some data. wget is a “non-interactive network downloader,” in other words it is a command that will download files from the internet.
Run wget and follow the instructions to figure out how it works. TODO Question 2.1: What argument does wget require?
We are going to download a book from Project Gutenberg, an awesome project that is dedicated to the creation and distribution of eBooks. If you are interested, I’d highly recommend reading Michael S. Hart’s (the project founder) short essay describing the mission statement.
TODO On Project Gutenberg, search for a book that you are interested in. Then use wget to download the book.
Note: make sure to download the plaintext version. For example, if you were downloading Dracula, you would run
wget https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345.txt.utf-8
TODO Question 2.2: What command from above could you use to determine that the file has downloaded? Then use that command to make sure that the file is indeed there.
mv commandmv is a command that can be used to move from one directory to another, or even rename files.
TODO: Use mv to rename the file to be the name of the book. Make sure to not have any spaces in the name of the file and that the file name ends in .txt.
cat commandThe last command we’ll use in this lab, is cat.
We are going to figure out what cat does by playing with in.
TODO: Run cat. Next, type a message into the command line and press Enter. Question 2.3: What happened?
Once you are finished with cat, hit CTRl-C, this will terminate the cat program.
TODO: Using the same way we figured out how to use other commands, use the same method to read more about cat.
TODO: Then, use cat to print out the entire book.
We have included more commands for interacting with files on the course webpage.
TODO Question 2.4: Using a command on the course webpage, determine how many lines are in your book? Using the same command that you found on the course webpage, how many words are in your book.
There are many more commands that you will be using during the semester. These include cp, rm, man, and others. Using the --help flag, you can read about that in terminal.
As the semester progresses, you will get more comfortable with and even gain mastery over the command line. Programming is a skill that can be developed like any other skill: practice, practice, practice!
For the remainder of the lab, you will go through the vimtutor. In the command line, type vimtutor. This will launch a tutorial on using vim.
Some of the machines in Park 230/231 might not have vimtutor installed. If thats the case, then complete the online vim tutorial: https://www.openvim.com/tutorial.html.
In the next lab we will 1) learn how to remotely access the lab machines, i.e. how to log into these machines from your own computer, 2) how to configure your terminal, and 3) write Java programs.
Before leaving, make sure your TA/instructor have signed you out of the lab. If you finish the lab early, you are free to go.