Fake Your Way Through Minis and Mainframes (formerly, "The Operating System Hand- book") Bob DuCharme Fake Your Way Through Minis and Mainframes: (formerly, "The Operating System Handbook") Bob DuCharme Copyright © 2001 Table of Contents I. Introduction ........................................................................................................1 A 2001 Preface to a 1994 Book ..................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ................................................................................ iii 1 Introduction .................................................................................................5 1.1 Why Should You Learn How to Use Minis and Mainframes? ...............5 1.1.1 What This Book Assumes That You Know ..............................7 1.2 Minicomputers ..................................................................................9 1.3 Mainframes ......................................................................................9 1.4 Getting to Know an Operating System ..............................................13 1.4.1 History and Culture ..............................................................13 1.4.2 Starting Up: Getting to Use the System ..................................14 1.4.3 Filenames ............................................................................15 1.4.4 How Files Are Organized ......................................................15 1.4.5 On-line Help ........................................................................15 1.4.6 Dealing with Files: The Most Important Commands ...............15 1.4.7 The Text Editor ....................................................................16 1.4.8 Printing Text Files ................................................................18 1.4.9 Command Files ....................................................................18 1.4.10 Sending and Receiving Mail ................................................19 1.4.11 A Sample Session ...............................................................19 1.5 General Advice ...............................................................................20 1.5.1 Filenames ............................................................................20 1.5.2 Mail ....................................................................................24 1.5.3 The Text Editor ....................................................................24 1.5.4 Looking at Text Files ............................................................26 1.5.5 "Printing" on the Screen ........................................................26 1.5.6 Reading and Writing .............................................................27 1.5.7 Logging Off (or Out) ............................................................27 1.5.8 Terminal Emulation and File Transfer ....................................28 1.6 Syntax Expressions in this Book ......................................................29 1.7 Comments and Suggestions .............................................................30 II. UNIX ..............................................................................................................31 Chapter 2 UNIX: An Introduction ..................................................................33 2.1 History ...........................................................................................33 2.1.1 Today ..................................................................................35 2.1.2 USENET .............................................................................37 Chapter 3 Getting Started with UNIX .............................................................39 v 3.1 Starting Up .....................................................................................39 3.1.1 Finishing Your UNIX Session ...............................................40 3.2 Filenames .......................................................................................40 3.2.1 Wildcards ............................................................................41 3.3 How Files Are Organized ................................................................41 3.3.1 Relative Pathnames ..............................................................44 3.3.2 Moving between Directories .................................................44 3.4 Available On-line Help ....................................................................46 Chapter 4 Using Files in UNIX ......................................................................47 4.1 The Eight Most Important Commands ..............................................47 4.1.1 Command Options: Switches ................................................47 4.1.2 Common Error Messages ......................................................48 4.1.3 Listing Filenames .................................................................49 4.1.4 Displaying a Text File's Contents ..........................................57 4.1.5 Copying Files .......................................................................60 4.1.6 Renaming Files ....................................................................62 4.1.7 Deleting Files .......................................................................63 4.1.8 Controlling Access to a File ..................................................65 4.1.9 Creating Directories ..............................................................67 4.1.10 Removing Directories .........................................................68 Chapter 5 The UNIX vi Text Editor ...............................................................71 5.1 Entering vi ......................................................................................71 5.2 Inserting Text .................................................................................73 5.3 Deleting Text ..................................................................................73 5.4 Typing Over Existing Text ...............................................................74 5.5 Searching for Text ...........................................................................74 5.6 Saving Your Changes ......................................................................74 5.7 Quitting vi ......................................................................................76 5.8 Other vi commands .........................................................................76 Chapter 6 Using a UNIX System ...................................................................79 6.1 Printing Text Files ...........................................................................79 6.1.1 Checking the Print Queue .....................................................79 6.1.2 Canceling Your Print Job ......................................................79 6.2 Command Files ...............................................................................80 6.2.1 The Automatic Login Command File .....................................81 6.3 Communicating with Other Users .....................................................82 6.3.1 Receiving Mail .....................................................................83 6.4 A Sample UNIX Session .................................................................85 III. VMS ..............................................................................................................89 Chapter 7 OpenVMS: An Introduction ...........................................................91 7.1 History ...........................................................................................92 7.1.1 Today ..................................................................................93 Fake Your Way Through Minis and Main- vi frames 7.1.2 VMS, DCL ..........................................................................95 Chapter 8 Getting Started with OpenVMS ......................................................97 8.1 Starting Up .....................................................................................97 8.1.1 Finishing Your VMS Session ................................................97 8.1.2 Entering Commands .............................................................98 8.2 File Names ...................................................................................100 8.2.1 Wildcards ..........................................................................101 8.3 How Files Are Organized ..............................................................102 8.3.1 Moving Between Directories ...............................................104 8.3.2 Querying Available Disk Space ...........................................106 8.4 Available On-line Help ..................................................................106 Chapter 9 Using Files in OpenVMS .............................................................113 9.1 The Eight Most Important Commands ............................................113 9.1.1 Command Options: Qualifiers .............................................113 9.1.2 Common Error Messages ....................................................114 9.1.3 Listing File Names .............................................................115 9.1.4 Displaying a Text File's Contents ........................................118 9.1.5 Copying Files .....................................................................119 9.1.6 Renaming Files ..................................................................121 9.1.7 Deleting Files .....................................................................122