On Mon, 17 Jan 2000, Merideth Johnston wrote:

> Exactly, but I don't know what things I NEED to do to set it up.  The
> instructions say, look at a file in the /etc directory, but I don't know
> how to change directories (and haven't stumbled upon it yet in the manual)
> and I don't know what sort of things in there need changing, or how to look
> at the file, or how urgent it is to do it......

OK.  Well, I can't remember exactly what to do here, so I'll let someone
else (hopefully) hold your hand through the maze.

> have ordered some books from the library that should help but it may be
> awhile before I can get them.  I'm afraid I don't have any computer
> friends.  8-(  I have the internet, and that's about it.

It seems as everyone has been taking a theoretical approach to this. 
Well, to relieve your frustration, here's a few actual commands you might
want to use (in no particular order), that appear in my history file
(automatic list of commands I've used recently). 

date (the current date and time)
pwd (the current working directory)
uname -a (the operating syste, machine name, architecture, kernal, etc.)
whoami (your username)
who am i (your user name when you logged in, plus more info)
uptime (time, how long since boot-up, users logged in, how hard it's
 working)
w (what/who is running)
finger (kind of like "w" - more focus on users)
cd <directory_name> (change to directory <directory_name>)
cd .. (change to parent/encompassing/one-up directory)
ls (list files in current directory)
ls -l (list files with long details)
cat <file_name> (retrieve entire contents of <file_name>)
more <file_name> (retrive file contents, 1 page per space-bar hit)
head <filename> (show beginning of file <filename>)
tail <filename> (show end of <filename>)
history (show commands used recently)
rm <file_name> (remove/delete file <file_name>)
mv <file1> <file2> (rename <file1> to <file2>)
cp <file1> <file2> (copy <file1> to <file2>)
spell <file_name> (display unknown words in <file_name>)
ps (show running programs/processes)
which <program_name> (search PATH for the location of <program_name>)
file <file_name> (make guess at data in <file_name>)
clear (clear the screen)
diff <file1> <file2> (show differences in files <file1> and <file2>)
cmp <file1> <file2> (compare files <file1> and <file2>)
grep <word> <filename> (look for <word> in <filename>, and show line)

Commands like 'vi' and 'chmod' I've skipped, because they take some
explaining, and you can mess up a file or lock yourself out of it with
these - although you can do that with 'rm' too.  You can look up "echo",
"sort", "ln", "nice", "nohup", "kill", and "wc" later.  You also will want
to read about pipes (the "|" facility) and redirection (the ">" and "<"
characters).  I've also left out the networking/connectivity stuff,
anything related to third-party software or my jobs, and anything too hard
to explain.  Actually, I've left out a lot  :-)

> Another warning message I'm getting is the /etc/rc.conf is not configured
> message, and I'd like to know HOW to do that, what is in there to be
> configured, and what the options ARE.  That would help.

Well, perhaps you could ask folks to send you snippets from their
configuration files (/etc/rc.conf, etc.) regarding certain entries, and
you could figure out how things should be.  However, you are going to have
to learn how to use a text editor first, and that ought to be vi - unless
youare familiar with *line* editors, in which case something like "ed" is
even more universal, and is actually the base on whch "vi" is built.

> as a died-in-the-wool mac user, I doubt I'll be _able_ to operate it
> minimally well via the gibberish, though I do understand the old-timers
> affection for it.  The alias idea may work ok for me, as well as the other
> suggestions, which I will check out.  Heck, I don't even use the keyboard
> shortcuts liberally available on the mac.  If it's something I do often,
> I'd rather make a script, with a menu of icons....  It's the graphical
> thing to do.  8-)

Well, UNIX is popular (sort of) because of it provides cheap and flexible
power to solve problems and do all kinds of stuff.  Doing things the
graphical way can be easier, but can also be limiting and more costly in
terms resources.  If you don't think you'll get comfortable with the
current interface, you might be much happier doing the stuff on a GUI
based-system.  UNIX has X-windows as a GUI interface, but it depends
heavily on the text-based interface working first to set up.  A much as I
think UNIX is cool, I'll agree that it's not intuitive.

Here's one more tip: subscribe to UGU - the Unix Guru Universe.  They have
a mailing list that receives one system administration tip per day, on
things like how not to shoot yourself in the foot with command-line
mistakes, or do non-intuitive tasks easily, or repetitive tasks
automatically.  There's a nice big link "NEW TO UNIX BEGINNERS & USERS
START HERE", which might be useful to you.

> See ya on t'other side.  The natives seem to be friendly.  8-)

We'll be waiting...


/*======================================================================
"Don't die wondering..."                http://www.cldc.howard.edu/~cpg
                                              email: cpg@scs.howard.edu
chris out-              Christopher P. Gill
  peace.        C.L.D.C. Senior System Operator (Ret.)
======================================================================*/