The Command Line?

What we hear about using the command line
  • It’s difficult

  • Only nerds do it!

  • It’s obsolete, better use my super GUI

  • I don’t have that on my computer

The Command Line?

The facts
  • Using the command line interface is a must to control your computer

  • It’s a rich environment with time-proof tools

  • It’s always been available on all operating systems!

  • All activities in the Computer Science or similar courses make use of the command line

  • It is a pain to learn …​ if you don’t want to!

    • Even if you want to, the learning curve may be steep…​

Objectives

Including but not limited to:
  • Understanding the filesystem

  • Discovering and practising the most common Linux commands

  • Discovering and practising the input and output streams as well as pipelines

  • Using variables and creating scripts

  • Discovering Regular Expressions

Big Data ?

Process large volumes of data quickly and automatically - that’s the promise of Big Data.

Data often comes from the real world (production lines, sensors in vehicles, sensors in buildings, etc.) and is generally raw.

This data needs to be cleaned before it can be analyzed, understand the system’s behavior, etc.

This tedious cleaning work can be lightened by using the right tools.

Content

Lecture
  • Very light presentations

    • Few minutes introducing the topic

Practical Work
  • Lots of hands-on work where you experiment, you learn

    • Work on raw data

  • Create simple, but well-understood commands, responding to a precise but generalizable problem

  • Favor one liners, but do not shy away from more complex scripts

  • From the most simple commands to full-featured scripts

Working Environment

We favor the use of Linux, in all its forms.

  • A Linux distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, …​)

  • WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

  • MacOS + Terminal

Working Environment

  • Proven tools

  • Use of the command line

  • Concepts found everywhere

  • More freedom than with graphical tools

Windows Subsystem for Linux

  • Introduced in 2016 (Windows 10, Windows server 2016)

  • Available on more recent Microsoft OSes

  • A virtual machine (Hyper-V) with a Linux kernel

  • Allows Linux distributions to be installed in containers

  • Integration with Windows

MacOS

  • Natively a Unix operating system (BSD)

  • Terminal gives access to all classic commands

  • Some differences in behavior between BSD and Linux commands

References

‡ : read thoses pages on your own operating system, not on the Internet!