Date/Time: Friday 25 July 2014: Part 1: 10am - 12noon; Part 2: 1pm - 3pm

Location: SIIT Bangkadi Network Lab (ground floor of IT/MT Bldg)

Contents

Using the command line on Unix-like operating systems (e.g. Linux, BSD, MAC OSX). The workshop will be separated into two parts. You may attend both parts or choose to attend only the part of interest to you.

Part 1. Morning.

Introduction to the command line. This is for users new to the command line. It will cover commands to:

• Change directories, list files (e.g. pwd, cd, ls)
• Copy, rename and move files and directories (e.g. cp, rm, mv, mkdir, rmdir)
• View and edit text files (e.g. cat, less, nano)
• Search and filter text files (e.g. grep, cut, sed)
• Pipes and redirection (e.g. >, <, | )

No background experience with the command line is required. This part will be similar to the first lab in ITS332 (i.e. those students that have taken the networking lab with me will know all of this already).

Part 2. Afternoon.

More command line features. This is for users that know basic command line commands (i.e. from part 1). It will cover:

• Creating scripts to automate multiple tasks, i.e. Bash shell scripting with for loops and if/then/else statements
• Scheduling tasks to start at some time (e.g. once per hour, every day) using cron
• Personalizing your command line and Terminal using command aliases and environment variables
• Manipulating multimedia files on the command line, e.g.:
  • ImageMagick: Converting images from one format to another; automatically adding text to images
  • FFMPEG: Converting video/audio; screencasts; editing video
  • tar, gzip: Compressing and archiving files
  • PdfTk: splitting, combining and editing PDF files; adding watermarks

This part follows from part 1: it is assumed you have either completed part 1, taken ITS332 or have similar background.

Preparation

This workshop will be performed using Ubuntu Linux on the lab computers. There is nothing for you to prepare if you use the lab computers.

If you want to use your own laptop, then you may do so. Although you may use OSX or your own Linux installation to perform most of the tasks, an easier approach will be to install Ubuntu Linux in VirtualBox. You should install that before the workshop if you want to use your own computer. Otherwise use the lab computers.

Resources

• Linux Reference Card. Two page list of common Linux commands.
• Why Linux? Short set of slides about history and why use Linux command line (in ITS332 Network Lab)
• Linux Filesystem and Permissions. Summary of Linux/Unix filesystem hierarchy and permissions of different users to read/write/execute files.
• Linux Standard Interaction. Explains stdin, stdout and redirection.
• Linux Command Line Examples: Aliases, Prompts and Scripting. Basics of Bash shell and scripting.
• Linux Command Line Examples: wget, PdfTk, ffmpeg, sox. Creating, converting and manipulating websites, PDF, audio and video files.
• Videos:
  • Intro to Workshop and tmux (12 min)
  • Directories and Files (1 hr): pwd, cd, ls, mkdir, rmdir, cp, mv, nano, less, grep, cat, find
  • Pipes and Redirection (22 min): |, <, >
  • Bash Scripting (1 hr): Prompt, Path, Bash scripts, For loops, If/then/else (examples)
  • PDF, Video and Audio Processing (40 min): PdfTk, FFmpeg, Sox (examples and scripts)
  • Screencast with FFmpeg and Sox (16 min) (examples and scripts)

Photos