Learn How UNIX Multitasks

BlueVoodoo writes "On UNIX systems, each system and end-user task is contained within a process. Learn how to control processes and use a number of commands to peer into your system."

Comments

exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! ps, top, sleep, kill, PIDs? This is some pretty groundbreaking stuff here!

Re:exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to set the I_WANT_A_BROKEN_PS environment variable!

Re:exciting

[morgan_greywolf]

I especially liked this one:

$ ls -l /usr/bin/top
-r-xr-sr-x 1 root tty 19388 Mar 20 2005 /usr/bin/wall

Wow. That's a neat trick.

Re:exciting

[Matt Perry]

Don't forget to set the I_WANT_A_BROKEN_PS [rt.com] environment variable!

POSIX_ME_HARDER would have been a much better variable name.

Next...

[ari_j]

Learn how UNIX stores files. This revolutionary new article will show you how to use ls and cd, and you will walk away with a complete understanding of how files are stored. More magic demystified, indeed!

please, hepl

[Anonymous Coward]

I get
"ps: Command not found"

What do to? Heeeeeelp.

Re:please, hepl

[EricTheGreen]

Try this instead:

"c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Hope this hepls....

Incredible!

[Wuhao]

With several businesses now owning their own Unix mainframes, and with some futurists speculating that hobbyists may one day have full-fledged Unix systems in their basements, a detailed understanding of Unix operation -- including its intricacies, like these "processes" -- becomes increasingly important, even for people not charged with the operation of one of these computational goliaths. I for one plan to study these "processes" carefully.

Use the Firehose!

[644bd346996]

If you think this article is stupid and an insult to your technical prowess, go to the firehose and vote it down.

Re:Use the Firehose!

[gEvil (beta)]

Mod Parent Up! Vote Article Down!

Re:Use the Firehose!

[Vellmont]

If you think this article is stupid and an insult to your technical prowess, go to the firehose and vote it down.

Not everyone on Slashdot is at the same level as everyone else. While I've known all the stuff in the article for 10-12 years, I'm certain there's a significant number of people here that have no idea about process forking, or what the init process is.

random?

[flynt]

Is it just me, or is this one of the most random Slashdot articles ever posted? A link to Chapter 8 of an IBM manual on Unix development, really?

Gee Whizzes

[helixcode123]

I have mod points, but I thought I'd post instead: Look genuises. Not every slashdot reader is a Unix guru. I think this is an excellent article and does a great job explaining some of the core workings of Unix/Linux. I've been fortunate enough to be using Unix since 1981 and I actually enjoyed reading the article. It offers our Windows-centric Slashdot breatheren a nice overview.

Re:Gee Whizzes

[loconet]

It offers our Windows-centric Slashdot breatheren a nice overview

John and Mark don't have net access on Mondays so they wouldn't have been able to read this article anyways.

Digg?

[loconet]

Did I mistype the URL? No, it does say slashdot.org. Odd... I should go back to bed.

Re:What the flying f*ck?

[NeoPaladin394]

This is an article in a series (labeled Introductory to Intermediate) designed to introduce to the O/S. The first article in the series talks about how to use find! You can't point at an O'Reilly book and call Stupid because you know what it talks about. The article is well written and explains processes perfectly for the intended audience, and not everyone is born with the intrinsic knowledge of how every O/S in the world works. Readers on this site want a world of O/S choices, but are so willing to bash an article that will help accomplish just that? And just because it gives a quick, sentence overview of PS and LS? Unbelievable.

The article may or may not belong on the front page, but claiming someone's illiterate for not knowing stuff like this, especially if they were in an Apple or MS shop? Heaven forbid.

In Other News...

[Ikcor]

How to master the "other half" of the keyboard using the newly discovered SHIFT key.

Segfaults

[Anonymous Coward]

If it helps, you can think of a process as its own sovereign nation, with borders, resources, and gross domestic product.

Does this mean that illegal immigrants are responsible for my processes segfaulting?

IBM had better be careful..

[Morky]

Doesn't SCO own the rights to this information?

Re:How to learn unix...

[Ngarrang]

How about: Bathe, get a girlfriend, go outside, read a 20 minute FAQ and learn more than most *nix sysadmins seem to know. My wife might have a problem with the second item...

A few days ago

[Tyr_7BE]

I saw slashdot transformed into Digg, with "slashdotit" links everywhere. That was supposed to be a joke, right? Because it's only funny the first time.

Re:Woop-tee-doo.

[ukemike]

It's a basic primer on UNIX job control. Whee. Not that it isn't well done or useful to the target audience -- but how is this 'news', never mind 'stuff that matters'?
"Looks like someone has a case of the mondays!"

I thought that the slashdot community was supportive of people migrating away from windoze to the linux world. TFA covers things that are not obvious to people that don't have *nix experience. It was a nicely written article. It might spur discussion on further basic knowledge needed to deal with linux. The whole community of "nerds" includes slide-rules to slashdot. Not every nerd is a sysadmin. To me this was useful. I already had learned 75% but had forgotten some and a bit was new and might be handy. That is "stuff that matters" to me. If nothing else cranky sysadmins, when posed with a question about something this basic, could roll their eyes condescendingly and give a link to this handy page.

The better question is why is this posted under "devcelopers"?