Useful Linux commands, Common commands

We went into the ThinkPad BIOS (F1 after starting the ThinkPad) and changed all the power-related functions to “Disable.” This solved the problem and we could leave OS/390 running overnight with no problems. We did not attempt to analyze the exact use of each BIOS control. We needed to scroll in at least one of the BIOS screens to access all the controls.13

5.23 Useful Linux commands

Not all ThinkPad/EFS owners have Linux or UNIX backgrounds, and a few brief notes may help these users.

Common commands

New users may find Linux commands a little confusing. The following is intended as a brief reminder of the syntax for a number of commands often used while working with Linux in a ThinkPad/EFS environment.

chown flexes /s390/volA	make userid “flexes” owner of this file
chgrp flexes /s390/volA	make group “flexes” the group owner of this file
chown aaa:bbb /home/myfile	make sss the owner userid and bbb the owner groupid
chmod 600 /s390/volA	allow only file owner to read & write this file
cat filename	list all of a file on the terminal
more filename	list a file, page by page (space bar to advance page)
	(Ctrl-z to exit from the program)
less filename	a newer version of more
cp /s390/volA /s391/volX	copy first file to second file
find / -name unzip	start search in root and find file named “unzip”
updatedb	update the database used by the locate command (root)
locate unzip	locate all files with “unzip” in their name
file /usr/bin/unzip	describe nature of named file
mkdir /home/ogden/source	create a new directory
ls -al	list current directory, in some detail
ls -lrt	list current directory, most recently updated files last
mv oldfile newfile	rename or move a file
rm filename	delete a file
head filename	list first 10 lines of file
tail filename	list last 10 lines of file
tar -cvxf mytar.tar /flexes/rundir		create tar file from files in /flexes/rundir
tar -tvxf mytar.tar		list files contained in “my.tar”
tar -xvxf mytar.tar		extract all the files in the tar file
unzip /dev/cdrom/os390/os39ra.zip		-d/s390	unzip a file on CD-ROM
mdir a:	display DOS diskette
mcopy /flexes/x/y a:x.txt	copy Linux file to a DOS diskette file
mdel a:afile.txt	delete a file on diskette
mformat a:	format a DOS diskette
shutdown -h now	shut down the Linux system

13When we first installed the ThinkPad, we quickly checked the BIOS controls and thought we disabled any automatic power-off function. However, we failed to scroll through all the options and we had the automatic shutdown problem just mentioned.

60S/390 PID: ThinkPad Enabled for S/390