JMU JMU - Department of Computer Science
Help Tools
Using the Unix-Like Utilities


1 Getting Started

The machines in the CS Department's Computer Labs all have a number of Unix-like utilities installed that can make your life much easier.

If you try to use one of these utilities and you get a message like:

    The name specified is not recognized as an
    internal or external command, operable program or batch file.    
    

then you will need to modify the path to executables as follows:

    set PATH=%PATH%;"c:\Program Files\UnixTools\"
    

2 What's Available

There are many Unix-like utilities available. Some of the most useful include:
cut Cut columns from a text file
grep Search files for text
head Display the first few lines of a file
hostname Display the name of the machine
mv Move files between directories
paste Paste columns into a text file
pwd Display the current/working directory
sleep Execute a command after a delay
touch Change the date associated with a file
uniq Remove duplicates records from a sorted file
wc Count lines, words and characters
which Find executables in the path
whoami Display your login name

Copyright 2019