Lab 1: Your first Linux session

Revised January 11, 2001. Press your browser's Reload or Refresh button to get the latest version.

If the computer is still running Windows, you must boot Linux:

  1. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the Windows login dialog
  2. Select Restart (if Restart is not shown, select Shutdown first)
  3. Eventually the Windows graphic screen disappears, the screen goes black, then a crude menu in typewriter font appears. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight over Red Hat 6.2 and press the Enter key. Many messages scroll by. Eventually the Red Hat login screen appears.

If the Linux login screen (with the Red Hat logo) is visible you can log in:

  1. Select the Session menu, I recommend KDE. You must do this each time you log in.
    (If you already know and like Gnome, go ahead and use that instead)
  2. Type your username into the text box, then press RETURN
  3. Type your password into the text box, then press RETURN. If you typed your username and password correctly, the KDE desktop appears.

Open a terminal window:

  1. On the KDE desktop, click on the K logo (usually in the lower left corner of the screen) to bring up the KDE menu
  2. Move the cursor over Utilities
  3. Click on Konsole. The terminal window appears.
  4. You can use the Options menu to customize the terminal window appearance. I like Font: Huge, Size: 80x24 (vt100), Schema: System Colors
    5. . Then select Save Options.
  5. From now on you can open new terminal windows by typing konsole & at the command prompt in any terminal window (you don't have to use the K menu).

Your assigned password could be guessed by someone else. The first time you log in, you should change your password:

  1. Type the command yppasswd (not just passwd) and follow the prompts.

Get oriented:

  1. Type the command to show your home directory: pwd
    (The colon : is not part of the command, just type pwd)
  2. Type the command to list information about your own account: finger username
  3. List information about your own account, and possibly others: finger firstname
  4. List the files in your current directory: ls
  5. List all the files in your current directory, including the hidden dot files: ls -a
  6. List all your files, with additional information: ls -aF
  7. Change to the parent directory: cd ..
  8. Type the command to show your new current directory.
  9. List the files in the current directory.
  10. Page through the list of files: ls | more
    Press the space bar to get the next page.
    Press Ctrl-c to interrupt the command (hold down Ctrl, press c at the same time).
  11. Change back to your home directory: cd.
  12. Repeatedly move up to parent directories, listing files in each directory, until you reach root. Return to your home directory.

Make a web page:

  1. Confirm you are in your home directory.
  2. Copy the web page template into your home directory : cp ~jackyj/fofc-lab.html .
    (be sure to type the period at the end, it is part of the command)
  3. List the files in your directory to confirm you have the template.
  4. Edit the web page: emacs fofc-lab.html
    (edit in emacs, then exit)
    (If you already know and like vi or some other editor, go head and use that instead)
  5. Display the web page: more fofc-lab.html
  6. Create a directory for your web page: mkdir web
    (If you already have a web directory, that's fine, you needn't create a new one)
  7. Move the web page page into your web directory: mv fofc-lab.html web
  8. List the files in your directory to confirm the web page has moved.
  9. Change into your web directory: cd web
  10. List the files to confirm the web page is there.
  11. View the web page in a browser. The URL should be http://grace.evergreen.edu/~username /fofc-lab.html
    (substitute your username after the tilde)

Log out:

  1. Click the K logo to bring up the menu, click Logout at the bottom of the menu. The login screen reappears.
Jon Jacky, jackyj@evergreen.edu