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Introduction

I wrote this booklet for a Basic UNIX Users Course. It was not originally intended for self study, but can be used as such. At the end of each section there is a set of exercises. The exercises expect the computer being used to be connected to the Internet, or at least a local area network.

While writing this booklet I was working on a range of different systems and my experience is drawn from all of them. They included Sun SparcStations, HP Workstations, DEC MIPS Workstations, DEC Alpha Servers and PCs running UNIX, DEC VAXes and Alphas running VMS, PCs running DOS and Windows and Apple Macintosh Computers.

All systems have their advantages and disadvantages. This booklet does not try to justify the use of UNIX, the choice of operating system is mainly based on the availability of software needed for the given task.

For those though who want to try UNIX, there are free versions available for most computers including Acorn, Atari, Amiga, Alpha, MIPS, Sparc and the PC.

Writing this course would have been impossible without the help of the systems staff, Jon, Will and Mark, of the Department of Computer Science at Royal Holloway and Laura, Mark and Barry who proof read this booklet countless times to find all my mistakes.

January 1996

The Author



Mark O. Stitson
Wed Sep 25 10:45:32 BST 1996