EMT2390L (LINUX) LAB 2

Description:

Using the man pages, info pages, and other sources of on-line and Internet information is a vital skill, needed by all users. In this lab you will need to find, read, and understand these sources of information in order to answer the following questions. This lab is designed to give you plenty of practice using the man command. Not all of the answers will be found in the man pages, but all may be found either there or in other resources. Be sure to allow yourself plenty of time to complete this project; it usually takes longer than most students expect!

For full credit: You must give an answer, as well as the source of your answer:

a specific man page name (including section number) if the question can be answered by a man page;

an info page name if the question can't be answered by a man page but can be answered by an info page;

a working URL to a web page containing the answer otherwise.

While you could use an on-line search engine to find the answers to all these questions (because man pages are on-line), or your book, not using man when the question can be answered that way, or info pages when man doesn't have an answer, will lose you credit. If you don't state the source of your answer, I will assume you searched the Internet.

Since man pages differ between different Unix and Linux systems (and even between versions of the same system), you must use the man and info pages on YborStudent to complete this assignment. (I have verified that each question that can be answered with man or info pages, can be answered on YborStudent.) However, remember that not all questions can be answered with man or info pages.

Questions: Remember to state your source (man page title and section, or info page title, or URL) in addition to your answer.

What should the command cat foo > bar do? (Don't try to run it, just figure it out from the on-line documentation). Assume foo is an existing files with text and bar does not exist.

What option(s) would you use to sort a file named foo in place, that is replacing the original file with the sorted version, with one command and no extra files created?

A jiffy is a unit of time on Linux systems. What man page describes a jiffy?

What is the official (and historical) name of the fifth field of entries in the /etc/passwd file?

What three options to the Gnu date command can be used to display the current date and time in Coordinated Universal Time?

To be turned in:

Remember to include the source of your answer: the man page, info page, or web URL where you found the answer.