Tony's Very Basic Unix Guide:
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Files, and what to do with them:
--------------------------------

The basic command for listing what files you have is

ls

A couple of options for it:

ls -l		Lists the size and date of files as well as their names.
ls -a		Lists all files, even hidden files.

Hidden files are files you don't see when you do a regular ls. There files have
a . as the fist letter of their name. For example, there's sometimes a .mail 
in your directory.

The files are arranged in directories. This is there so you can organize your
stuff. For example, you may want to put all the files for a class in one
direcory. You can make a directory with

mkdir directory_name

and you can go to that directory with 

cd directory_name	change to directory directory_name

You can erase or remove files with

rm file_name

You can erase an entire directory and everything in it with

rm -r directory_name

be carefull with this one.

You'll be in you "home" directory when you log in. If you change to some
other directories and want to get back to your home directory, just type

cd

This will put you back to the beginning. 

How do you know what directory you're in? type

pwd		Print working directory


Editing and Viewing Files:
=========================

Viewing files:
-------------

An easy way to look at a file is using the 'cat' program. For example,
you can

cat file_name

which will show you the file 'file_name'. The problem is that it runs
off the top of the screen before you can read all of it.

Try this with your mbox file:

cat mbox

A better way is to use the 'more' command. This shows one page of the file,
and asks you to press a key to show the next page. Press space to see the
next page, or q to stop looking at the file. Try

more mbox

There's also another program called 'less', which is a bit better than
'more'. Try

less mbox

Editing files:
--------------

The basic editor is 'vi'. It's real old, and an incredible pain in the butt.
Most systems these days let you use 'pico', which is the same editor you use
in the 'pine' mail program. If you're a beginner I recommend staying
away from 'vi'. Still, here's some info on how to use it.

vi has two basic 'modes'. In one mode you're actuall entering text, and in
the other (the 'command' mode) you're playing with the text. You start in
the command mode. 

Try the following: start vi on a new file, with

vi junk		Edit the file junk

Now you want to enter text. You can do this by pressing 'i' on the keyboard.
By the way, if I put quotes around the letters, you don't need to actually
type those in; just type the letters. Also, vi, and unix in general, care
whether you use upper case or lower case letters. Make sure you use the
correct case.

Once you press 'i', you can enter text. Try it; put some lines in, erase
some, see how it works. Note that you can't erase things on the previous
line; to do this you need to get into the 'command' mode. 
To get into command mode, press the ESCAPE key. This is usually on the
upper left side of the keyboard. 

Now you're in command mode, and the letters you press correspond to commands.

Moving around: vi has a particularly stupid way of letting you move around 
in the file. It uses the 'h', 'j', 'k', and 'l' keys. This is just because
vi is a real old and stupid program. Try the cursor keys if your keyboard
has them. Sometimes those work also. Move around in the file and see what
each key does.

Some commands:
dd	(press d twice) deletes a line. Go over a line, and press 'dd'.
	The line will be deleted. 

i	Put you in 'insert' mode. You can enter text from here. ESCAPE
	puts you back in command mode.

h, j, k, and l:
	go left, down,up, and right

How do you know if you're in command mode or edit mode? Type 'h', 'j',
'k', or 'l', and see if you move around or if the letters show up.
If you move around, your're in command mode. If not, press ESCAPE to
get into command mode.

Saving the file and Exiting vi: vi has yet another way of doing things. When
in command mode, press ':'. You will see a : on the bottom left of the
screen. Now you can type some commands. Some of these are:
:w	write the file to disk; i.e. save it.
:q	quit vi
:wq	save the file and quit
:q!	Definitely quit! vi will tell you if you try to quit without
	saving the file you're editing. This command tells vi to
	quit without saving the changes.

These should do for now. Note that you only need one ':'. For example, to
save the file, type ':w', not '::w'.