"virtual class" activities

Listen to a lecture

Listen to this online lecture about  the shell. It requires a browser with Flash plug-in and is about 55 MB. If your connection is too slow, you can use the school computer lab provided you bring a set of standard headphones or earplugs to listen to the narration.

Perform a would-be "in-class" exercise

Go to the link on the class website entitled "filename expansion" and perform the exercise it contains. As written, it assumes you are going to do the exercise on some linux machine to which you will download a file from sputnik. You can as well do the exercise on sputnik itself, where you have an account. In that case the method of obtaining the file of course entails no downloading. Instead you can directly copy the file into your home directory from the local sputnik directory where it resides. The commands to achieve that would be:

cd     (makes sure your home directory becomes current directory)
cp  /home/ftp/pub/demo-filename-expansion  .

(The dot at the end, above, is an essential part of the command's syntax. It is shell shorthand for "the current directory.") Once you have it you can proceed with the exercise from the point where you have it, as written.

Do Homework

read - Sobell ch 7 "The Shell". Read the whole chapter.