Student Notebook

Activity: Fill in the Blanks

Interface to
K______
hardware

User's
S_____
interface

F___ Access to
S______ data

Figure 1-5. Activity: Fill in the Blanks

Notes:

Operating system components

It is very important that you be able to identify the most important components of an
operating system.
This visual introduces these components, but as you notice, the visual is not complete.
Take some time and try to fill in the missing words.

1-8 AIX 7 Basics

V3.1
Student Notebook

Uempty

The Shell: User Interface to AIX

Executes user commands:

Command interpreter

Features:
Wildcards Programming
Variables Shell language

Customizable Process control

Figure 1-6. The Shell: User Interface to AIX

Notes:

Introduction
When you log in successfully to an AIX system, a special program is started for you: the
shell.

The shell
The shell waits for input and executes the commands and programs you type in. In
other words the shell is a command interpreter.
The shell offers many features (like wildcards to match file names, variables, command
line editing) that help the user in his daily work. We will discuss all these features in this
course.
The shell offers different ways to control processes. In this course, we explain how a
user can control his processes.

Unit 1. Introduction to AIX 1-9

Student Notebook

Customization
The shell is customizable. That means the user interface may be tailored according to
the requirements of each user. Customizing the user environment is another topic in
this course.
Besides all these properties, the shell is a programming language. You can write shell
scripts to create and tailor commands. Writing simple shell scripts will be covered later
in this course.

1-10 AIX 7 Basics

V3.1
Student Notebook

Uempty

Useful AIX Utilities

Search for specific files Search for patterns in files

file1

Compare files and

Compress files
directories

Figure 1-7. Useful AIX Utilities

Notes:

AIX utilities
Two components that you use on AIX are files and directories. To work with these
components, AIX offers a wide range of utilities:
- The find command to search for specific files
- The grep command to search for patterns in files
- Commands to compare files and directories
- Commands to compress and uncompress files to save disk space
Note that this list is not complete. Besides these utilities, the course introduces
additional tools that are useful for your work.

Unit 1. Introduction to AIX 1-11