Examining the Filesystem

Question 1

In Linux, info and programs are stored on…?

Answer 1

Disks as files.

Question 2

Files are grouped into…?

Answer 2

Directories, (Which can contain files and other directories, other OS often refer to directories as “folders”)

Question 3

This hierarchy of directories containing directories is often referred to as …?

Answer 3

The “Directory Tree”

Question 4

The base of the directory tree is a directory named simply…?

Answer 4

”/” (Referred to as “the root directory”.)

Question 5

Files within the root directory can referred to as…?

Answer 5

/filename

Question 6

In Red Hat Linux, root directory contains mostly other directories, such as…?

Answer 6

/etc

Question 7

Files within these subdirectories may be referred to as…?

Answer 7

/etc/filename ( and the process continues for each new level of subdirectories. For example, the file network found in the directory sysconfig, which is in turn found in the directory etc, which is in the root directory /, can be referred to as /etc/sysconfig/network

Question 8

Linux provides an easy way to get past a lot of work. Every process, including a user’s shell, uses a…?

Answer 8

Current working directory for context.

Question 9

Files in a process’s current working directory can be referred to as…?

Answer 9

Simply filename, without the leading slash.

Question 10

Files in subdirectories of the current working directory can be referred to as…?

Answer 10

dirname/filename, again without the leading slash. (For example, if a process’s current working directory were /etc, the network file referred to above could be referred to as sysconfig/network. If the working directory was /etc/sysconfig then the file could simply be referred to as network.)

Question 11

File references relative to root directory always start with a leading /, and are called…?

Answer 11

absolute references.

Question 12

File references relative to the current working directory start with something other than a /, and are referred to as…?

Answer 12

relative references.

Question 13

Users use the ls command to …?

Answer 13

list the contents of a directory. (think of the ls as a shortening of the verb “list”.)

Question 14

ls command, when called without arguments (i.e. without specifying a directory), lists the content of …?

Answer 14

the shell’s current working directory. (if using a colour terminal, the ls command also colourizes the filenames to help distinguish which of the directory contents are regular files (white), and which are directories (blue).

Question 15

ls command is very flexible command that can provide…?

Answer 15

a lot of different information.

Question 16

The cat command, when given a list of files, …?

Answer 16

con’cat’entes the files to the terminal output. (if given one file name, the contents of that single file is displayed as output.)

Question 17

If you ask cat to display a very long file, or a binary (non text) file, cat will…?

Answer 17

happily comply. (There are more sophisticated commands for browsing large flies, a screen full at a time, which will be introduced later.

Question 18

In Linux, most commands which generate text output use a common Unix concept called the…?

Answer 18

Standard out Stream. (By default, this stream is connected to the terminal. The bash shell allows users to “redirect” the standard out stream to other locations.)

Question 19

Using the _____ will redirect standard out into a file.

Answer 19

>

Question 20

In red hat linux, users are not able to…?

Answer 20

create files just anywhere. (In fact there are only a few places where files can be created. Every user has a home directory, where they can create new files (and new subdirectories). Fortunately, when user’s log in to a Linux session, their shell uses their home directory as its current working directory. By default in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a users home directory is named /home/username, where username is replaced with the user’s username).

Question 21

Assuming the shell’s current working directory is /home/elvis, which of the following would to the file /home/elvis/Mail/sent…?

Answer 21

Mail/sent

Question 22

As the user elvis, whose shell’s current working directory is /home/elvis, which of the following would refer to the file received, which is in the directory Mail, which is in the home directory…?

Answer 22

• /home/elvis/Mail/received

- Mail/received

Question 23

What command would list the files in the /usr/lib directory…?

Answer 23

ls /usr/lib

Question 24

What command would successfully redirect the output of the cal to the file lsout.txt…?

Answer 24

cal > lsout.txt

Question 25

For the user elvis, with /home/elvis for a home directory, which of the following commands would succeed on a default Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation…?

• ls /etc > /etc/lsetc.txt
• /etc/lsetc.txt /home/elvis/lsetc.txt
• /home/elvis/lestc.txt

Answer 25

ls /etc > /home/elvis/lsetc.txt