Getting stuff done in Ubuntu - command line stuff

The default command line shell for Ubuntu is the "bash" shell.

Opening a Terminal session:
If you want a Root Terminal, first add it to the menu
For a regular Terminal, pick the "Applications" menu from the task bar, then the "Accessories" menu, then the "Terminal" option.

Exiting a Terminal session:
If you've got a "#" prompt, just type "exit".
If the session is busy running a command such as "nautilus" (the File Browser), close the File Browser first.

Changing a directory (or "folder") at the command line:
	cd\			becomes cd		(to get to root)
	cd stuff		remains cd stuff
	cd..\..\stuff		becomes cd ../../stuff

Making a directory (or "folder") at the command line:
This is similar to DOS's MD command, use mkdir instead, here are equivalents:
	md stuff		becomes mkdir stuff
	md "directory name"	becomes mkdir "directory name"
	md ..\..\stuff		becomes mkdir ../../stuff
Note the proper use of slashes, Micro$oft did backslashes only to put a stamp on their stuff. The internet "/" has always been correct.

Mounting hard drives:
Having to mount hard drives is a big difference between Windows and Ubuntu.
The main reason is security, which is quite sensible. On Windows, anyone can take someone's hard drive and copy or move stuff from it.
You can have hard drives auto-mounted during the start-up process if you like. I won't go into that here, I'll just explain how to get the drive's partitions readable.
Each partition needs to be mounted separately, partitions can be in different file systems within the same drive.
 1. First you need to find out which cable and drive setting the relevant hard drive is attached to. This can either be done by looking at it or in the early stages of start-up or via the BIOS.
 2. Open a Terminal session, see "Opening a Terminal session".
 3. Make a directory to hold a drive's partition's contents in. See "Making a directory".
 4. You should know the file system on each partition. If not, you can detect it automatically, but that isn't very thorough.
 5. DOS and Windows does not put partition numbers in the correct order, so you might need to tweak the command below by running through the partition numbers.
 6. For the first partition in FAT32 on a Secondary Master hard drive, the command is:
			mount -t vfat /dev/hdc1 "mount directory name set by you"
    For the first partition in FAT32 on a Secondary Slave hard drive, the command is:
			mount -t vfat /dev/hdd1 "mount directory name set by you"
    For the fourth partition in FAT32 on a Secondary Slave hard drive, the command is:
			mount -t vfat /dev/hdd4 "mount directory name set by you"
    Basically, the first bit is the filesystem type ("vfat" for FAT32 or FAT16, "ext3" for Linux);
    		the second part is the drive code and partition number, the drive codes are as follows:
		"hda" for Primary Master,
		"hdb" for Primary Slave,
		"hdc" for Secondary Master,
		"hdd" for Secondary Slave.
		the partition numbers have to be experimented with. Mount the drive then look at the mount directory name set by you and see if it's the one You want.
		You'll get an error message if the partition is not the file system type You specified.

Unmounting hard drives:
This is so that You can be sure the drive won't be written to.
Open a Terminal session.
Get a list of mounted devices by typing "mount" (without the quotation marks) and pressing [Return].
One or more of the list will contain the drive partitions You have mounted, such as 
	/dev/hdc1 on /home/kev/1_mount type ext3 (rw)
To unmount hdc1 type:
	umount /dev/hdc1
Note the command is "umount", not "unmount".


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------