The Shell

or as you probably know it better as...

Terminal or Console

Bourne Shell (sh)

This is the oldest shell and as such is not as feature rich as many of the other shells.

Bash Shell (bash)

The Bash shell is a combination of features from the Bourne Shell and the C Shell. It's name comes from the Bourne Again SHell. It has a command-line editor that allows the use of the cursor keys in a more "user friendly" manner than the Korn shell. It also has a useful help facility allowing you to get a list of commands by typing the first few letters followed by the "TAB" key. It is the default shell on most Linux distributions.

Z Shell (zsh)

ZSH, also called the Z shell, is an extended version of the Bourne Shell (sh), with plenty of new features, and support for plugins and themes. Since it’s based on the same shell as Bash, ZSH has many of the same features, and switching over is a breeze.

man

Outputs manual aka "man" page that explains how to use the specified command

man <command>

Uses VI navigation and exit commands (To be explained later)

Tab Completion

bash and z shell both support tab completion at the command line

{partial command, file name, directory name}[tab]

Type a string that makes up the beginning of a command, file name and directory name and press the tab key to complete the exact match.

{partial command, file name, directory name}[tab][tab]

If there is no exact match, no results will show, but doing it twice [tab][tab] to get a list of possible matches.

ls

List file & directories (DOS equivalent is dir)

* is the wildcard

ls -l

List files and directory long format and show permissions

ls -a

List files and directory including hidden files

ls -h

List files and directory using human readable file size

ls -lah

Combining them all together

mkdir

Create a new directory

mkdir {directory name}

Path Aliases

cd & pwd

Change directory

cd {path to any directory}

cd ..

(double period) Change to the parent directory

cd ~

(tilde) Change to your home directory

cd -

(dash) Change to previous directory

pwd

Output your current location

touch

Create a new file

touch {file name}

cp

Copy

cp {source} {destination}

Copy a file, destination default is the current directory & can be omitted.

cp -R {source} {destination}

Copy recursively including directories

Destination default is the current directory (.) & can be omitted.

rm

Remove

rm -R

Remove recursively

rm -f

Remove forcefully i.e.: don't ask if this is what I really mean!

Linux Shell does NOT have a recycle bin! ... Be warned, there is no turning back.

rm -Rf

Remove recursively and forcefully.... Again be warned!

history

Command History, lists commands executed recently

Use the !## (Bang aka Exclamation Point) to execute a previous command

Up and down arrow keys can be used to navigate previous commands as well

ctrl+r

Search command history, right on the command line

Press ctrl + r and type a search string, press enter key to accept

Example: `npm`

cat

Outputs the contents of a file to the terminal

cat <file(s)>

.bashrc | .zshrc

.profile | .bash_profile | .zprofile

dot files

Dotfiles are used to customize your system. The “dotfiles” name is derived from the configuration files in Unix-like systems that start with a dot (e.g. .bash_profile and .gitconfig)

Getting Started With Dotfiles

Editors

Nano

Vim (VI)

Nano

GNU nano is a text editor for Unix-like computing systems or operating environments using a command line interface. It emulates the Pico text editor, part of the Pine email client, and also provides additional functionality.

There is only 1 mode in Nano, Edit.

Commands are executed using Ctrl (^) + Letter combinations i.e.: ^x to exit.

Vim

Linux: http://www.vim.org/

Mac: http://macvim-dev.github.io/macvim/

Happy Birthday - Nov. 2, 1991

Why is Vim important?

Vim is found on EVERY linux computer and is available via the command line.

VI vs Vim

Vim includes most all basic features from VI. For this Intro they can be interchanged.

Vim also has numerous additional features inlcuding:

• Vim has been ported to a much wider range of OS's than vi.
• Vim includes support (syntax highlighting, code folding, etc) for several popular programming languages (C/C++, Python, Perl, shell, etc).
• Vim integrates with cscope.
• Vim can be used to edit files using network protocols like SSH and HTTP.
• Vim includes multilevel undo/redo.
• Vim allows the screen to be split for editing multiple files.
• Vim can edit files inside a compressed archive (gzip, zip, tar, etc).
• Vim includes a built in diff for comparing files (vimdiff).
• Vim includes support for plugins, and finer control over config and startup files.
• Vim can be scripted with vimscript, or with an external scripting language (e.g. python, perl, shell).

Open a file with VIM

vim {file name}

This will open the file in command mode. What is command mode?

Modes

Command (esc)

Enter commands such as goto line, search, find and replace

Insert (i,I,a,A,o,O)

Insert new characters, Append new characters, Open a new line and then insert characters

Replace (R)

Enter insert mode while replacing characters instead of "pushing them"

Vim Editor Modes Explained

Basic Editing

Basic Command Structure

<quantity>command<movement>

All commands are cASe SeNsiTive

Movement

By default Vim uses only the basic keyboard so moving the cursor is down with...

h j k l

Arrow Keys also work most of the time, which I prefer.

Visual Mode

There are 3 types of visual mode, character, line & block

We are just scratching the surface of visual mode, more details here: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/visual.html

Search

/{search}

"n" & "N" will take you to next (n) and previous (N) search string.

Search and Replace

aka: substitute

:s/{search}/{replace}/g

Search and replace with the "g" option will not ask for confirmation.

The exclamation point (!)

With that being said...

Has anyone ever been trapped in Vim?