(Navigation: Type q to exit. Type b to go back to the previous page. Type <Space> to go to
the next page. Type j to scroll down by one line. Type k to scroll up by one line. You probably
want to remember these keys now since you need to scroll up and down this document as you read it.)
In this assignment, you will follow an online tutorial on how to use the command-line interface (CLI). CLI has been around for decades and there are many great tutorials online. The particular one that we will use is from Ryan's Tutorials, and we think that it is a very nice, introductory-level tutorial for beginners. How long it takes depends on your prior background, but the tutorial will probably take less than 3 hours.
Before you start, please carefully read the entire document. Otherwise, you may miss important information that you need to know to get the full credit for this assignment. In fact, for every assignment, it is important to read the entire assignment document first, before you start doing anything.
Here are the steps that you must follow.
- Use your browser to open the tutorial. The URL is https://ryanstutorials.net/linuxtutorial/.
- Use a terminal instance as you follow along the tutorial. Try out the commands that the tutorial demonstrates.
- At the end of each section, there are Activities that the tutorial asks you to complete. You must complete these activities because those are what we grade.
- For grading, you need to record what you do and submit the recording. We have a program named
recordthat records what happens on the terminal and saves it to some files. So before you start the tutorial, you need to runrecord, and later submit the files that it creates when you're done. It is important to remember that this records everything that you type on the terminal. Thus, do not type in anything sensitive. - You don't need to do the tutorial in one sitting as you can stop recording and later start recording again.
- There is a file named
a0-checkerin the repo. You must execute this at least once before your submission, which performs minimal basic checks. It is okay to run it multiple times as you go and 8000 you are encouraged to do it. A few things to note about the checker:- It warns you if you do not have any recording files. Generally, if you do not record your work sessions, you will receive a 0.
- It warns you if it detects any copy-and-paste actions. Generally, if you copy and paste anything, you will receive a 0. More on this below.
- It performs some basic checks for your progress and tells you about it.
- It is important to understand that the checker is not a grader and only performs minimal basic checks for you. We only provide it to make sure that you do not make any silly mistakes that could lead to an unexpected grade, e.g., a 0 or a very low grade. However, if it says that everything is good, and you have faithfully followed the tutorial, you can be assured that you will get the full credit.
- Note that if a check fails, it does not always tell you why. You need to debug it by yourself and find out.
- It is entirely your responsibility to run
a0-checkerbefore submitting your work.
- More precisely, when you work through the tutorial, follow these steps.
-
Make sure you are in the correct directory for this assignment by entering
cd ~/units/02-tools/a0-USERNAMEwhereUSERNAMEis your GitHub username. -
Always enter
recordfirst before doing anything else. Whenrecordis running, the prompt will display[recording]. Make sure you see it before proceeding. -
recordstarts recording what you do on your terminal and saves it to the files in a directory named.record. -
While recording, make sure that you do not copy and paste anything. You have to type everything yourself and understand the meanings. If you do, you will get a 0. If you happen to do it, you will need to remove the entire
.recorddirectory and start the tutorial all over again from the beginning to avoid getting a 0. -
Work through the tutorial and complete the activities. (There is one thing to note---for 6. Vi Text Editor section, whenever the tutorial says enter
vi, enternviminstead. We do not use the original vi. Instead, we use Neovim, a newer implementation of vi.) -
If you want to stop, enter
exit, which stops recording. Note that this does not stop the Docker container. It only stops recording. You need to enterexitagain if you want to stop using the container. -
Next time you come back, make sure you go to the correct directory (
cd ~/units/02-tools/a0-USERNAMEwhereUSERNAMEis your GitHub username) and enterrecord. It does not overwrite what you have recorded previously. It just writes to new files for recording. -
Once you are done with the tutorial and ready to submit, you are almost ready to use
gitto push your files. However, you need to provide your email and name first. This is a one-time setup, and you don't need to repeat this in the future. Below, replaceyou@example.comwith your SFU email andYour Namewith your name. You still need the double quotes.$indicates the command prompt. Do not enter it.$ git config --global user.email "you@example.com" $ git config --global user.name "Your Name"
-
Now you can use
gitto push your submission. Below, replaceUSERNAMEwith your GitHub username.$ cd ~/units/02-tools/a0-USERNAME $ git add . $ git commit -m "A0 submission" $ git push
-
Your final submission is whatever you
git pushby the deadline. When you have your final recording, make sure you usegitto add all the files and push it. -
If you recall,
git addtellsgitthat you want to save the contents of the files or directories that you provide as the arguments (a question here: what is.ingit add .? You should be able to answer this question from the tutorial you just finished).git commitactually saves the file contents, andgit pushuploads the saved files to your remote GitHub Classroom repo for the assignment.git commitrequires a commit message, and in the above, "A0 submission" is the commit message. You are free to replace it with your own message.git logshows commit messages. -
Normally, you should avoid using
git add .since it's going to blindlygit addall the files. Instead, you should pick and choose the correct files that you want to add and list them separately, e.g.,git add <file0> <file1> .... The only reason we're doinggit add .in this assignment is that for some students, this is the first time usinggitand the command-line interface and we want to simplify the submission for them. -
If you'd like to back up what you have been doing at any point, you can enter the above commands even when you are not ready to submit. Again, the above commands push your files to your remote GitHub Classroom repo for the assignment.
-
We have explained this previously, but we want to emphasize this once again.
git clone <URL>: This command clones (i.e., copies) a remote code repo at the URL to your local machine. This is typically the very first thing you do.git add <file0> <file1> ...: This command tellsgitthat you want to save the contents offile0,file1, ....git commit -m <message>: This command permanently saves the contents of the added files from previousgit addcommands. You need to provide a short message that describes what this commit is for. You can view these messages withgit logcommand.git push: This command pushes (i.e., uploads) all the committed files to the remote repo i.e., the repo that you cloned from usinggit clone.
Git is a very powerful tool for version control and collaboration, and it is part of every developer's workflow these days. Although we do not really teach Git other than telling you to use the above commands, we highly encourage you to learn it by yourself. You can start by taking a look at GitHub's Quickstart page.
At the end of the tutorial, there is a cheat sheet that summarizes basic commands. We highly recommend you to open the page in your browser and keep it in the background throughout the semester, so you can easily look up the commands that you want to use.
The shell you use on this VM is called zsh, which is different from bash that the tutorial uses. We use zsh because it is easier to customize and has some convenient features that bash does not have. For example, we have customized zsh on this VM as follows.
- You might have noticed that as you type in a command, it shows a suggestion. Pressing the right arrow accepts the suggestion.
- Pressing
<Ctrl>-ropens your command history with a tool called fzf. fzf is a fuzzy finder that matches partial strings. This allows you to easily find a command that you have typed in before. - Pressing
<Ctrl>-topens fzf to find files located below the current directory in the file hierarchy. You can use this to quickly find a file. - You might have noticed that the right most side of the command line shows git information such as the current git branch and the modification status.
- This is not specific to zsh, but instead of
ls, you can useexa, a more modern implementation oflsthat has some useful features.
You need to accept the invite for the next assignment (A1). The process is the same as the last time.
- Get the URL for A1. Go to the URL on your browser.
- Accept the invite for Assignment 1 (A1). It creates a private repo for you that contains the assignment.
- After your repo is created, click the URL displayed on the page to go to your repo.
- If you are not in
units/02-toolsdirectory, go to that directory by enteringcd ~/units/02-tools. - Enter
git clone git@github.com:SFU-CMPT-201/a1-USERNAME.gitbut replace USERNAME with your actual GitHub username. - This clones the assignment under a new directory named
a1-USERNAME(where USERNAME is still your GitHub username) underunits/02-toolsdirectory.
From now on, we will not show the navigation instructions for glow. Keep using glow -p to read
the Markdown files (.md) but remember the navigation keys.