Reading 00: Command-Line Crash Course

Readings

The readings for Tuesday, January 12 are:

  1. Command Line Crash Course

    This is a crash course into using a command line interface (focus on the Unix shell). An alternative guide is: Learning the Shell.

    OS X

    For Mac OS X users, you can simply open a Terminal to practice the commands. If you wish to login to remove Unix machine, you can use the ssh command as follows:

    $ ssh NETID@student00.cse.nd.edu

    This will connect to the remote machine student00.cse.nd.edu using the username NETID. You will need to do this later on when we connect to our Raspberry Pi's, but it is not necessary for the Command Line Crash Course.

    Windows

    For Windows users, you will need to connect to Unix machine such as student00.cse.nd.edu or student01.cse.nd.edu. To do so, you will need to use the PuTTY terminal application.

    You can use the following tutorial on how to use use PuTTY to connect to a remote Unix machine:

    • For the Hostname: you can use either student00.cse.nd.edu or student01.cse.nd.edu.

    • For the Username: you must use your Notre Dame netid.

    • For the Password: you must use your Notre Dame password.

    Once you are logged in, you can complete the crash course by typing the commands in PuTTY.

  2. What is a Raspberry Pi?

    This is an overview of the Raspberry Pi, which is the microcomputer we will be using this semester.

  3. Ubuntu MATE for the Raspberry Pi 2

    This is the operating system and development platform that we will be using on the Raspberry Pi.

Don't Panic!

If you are confused or have trouble either connecting to a Unix shell or forking the Bitbucket repository, don't worry! We will sort all these logistics out the first week of class. Do as much as you can and then come to class with questions.

Questions

Once you have completed these readings, please answer the following questions:

  1. After going through the Command Line Crash Course, command using the Unix shell to programming Python in a Jupyter Notebook. What are the similarities and what are the differences?

  2. Identify which Unix commands you would use to perform the following tasks:

    1. Check to see what files are in the current directory.
    2. Find out where you are in the filesystem.
    3. Move into another directory.
    4. View the contents of a file.

  3. What exactly is a Raspberry Pi? How is it similar or different from your laptop? your phone?

  4. Why do we need to run something like Ubuntu Mate on top of the Raspberry Pi? What does Ubuntu Mate provide?

Feedback

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the course, please provide your feedback at the end of your response.

Submission

To submit your response, please commit your work to your Readings Bitbucket repository.

To create your own repository, you will need to fork the CDT-30020-SP16/readings repository to create your own private repository just as we did last semester.

If you have forgotten how to do this, you can review the instructions from the previous course.

Note: Keep the name of the repository readings.