Instructions for using the SGI unix machines

The unix machines use the same directory structure as the windows/dos machines. When you log in to an SGI machine you will see what is called the "desktop". It looks a little bit like the Windows 95 desktop. But unlike windows95, where you rarely use the DOS command prompt, in unix the command prompt ( or "shell") is used extensively... mostly because its a very powerful and fast way to work on unix. So the first thing you want to do is, click on the "Desktop" button in the "Toolchest" and choose the "Unix Shell" item. The Toolchest is located on the upper left hand corner of the desktop. This will open a blue colored window with a unix command prompt in it. The prompt looks like this

studentx@Machine_name [ some number]

Congratulations. You are in the Unix shell now.

Once you are in the shell, type some commands to get the feel of the environment. eg.