Welcome to the course: Introduction to Linux

This material

Here you will find the content of the workshop “Introduction to Linux”.

Prerequisites

  • You need access to a Linux system.
  • You will use your own computer or any other computer (including computing access at computing centers) you have access to and that runs Linux.
  • The course project will be on Tetralith, for those that do not have other access to a computer that runs Linux.

Learning outcome

  • This NAISS course aims to give a brief, but comprehensive introduction to the Linux operating system.

  • What is Linux and why should I use it?

  • You will learn about
  • the command line interface (CLI)
  • navigating and modifying the file tree
    • ls
    • mkdir
    • cd
    • mv
  • editors on the Linux system
  • pipes, sorting, filters
    • redirection
    • pipes
    • etc.
  • patterns
  • scripting

  • some handy hints and tricks

  • This course will consist of lectures and type-alongs, as well as a few exercises where you get to try out what you have just learned.

  • This is the third instance of this course, and it has been somewhat reworked based on previous participant input. We would be grateful if you will fill the evaluation survey so we can further improve the course: https://forms.office.com/e/hCGaARFfjJ

Cluster-specific approaches

The course is given by HPC2N (Kebnekaise), but will be done under NAISS on the NAISS system “Tetralith”. There is a Get started guide for NSC here.

  • The login node for Tetralith is tetralith.nsc.liu.se.
  • It looks like this when I (x_birbr on “Tetralith”) login the first time from my computer “defiant”: 
    bbrydsoe@defiant:~$ ssh x_bibr@tetralith.nsc.liu.se
The authenticity of host 'tetralith.nsc.liu.se (2001:6b0:17:140::1:10)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:dwFmOFzy59e+OdZmMLAW3fj+GeMGACYwjPgc7LKZgSU.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'tetralith.nsc.liu.se,2001:6b0:17:140::1:10' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
Password:
Verification code:
  • The verification code it asks about is a 2FA that you need to set. See here: https://www.nsc.liu.se/support/2fa/.
  • You will probably not need it for the course, but the compute project ID is: naiss2025-22-262
  • The project storage for the course project is in /proj/r-matlab-julia-naiss/users/YOUR-USERNAME (the reason for this is that we are reusing the course project from another course)
    • Example, for the user x_birbr, this would be: /proj/r-matlab-julia-naiss/users/x_birbr

Important info

Preliminary schedule

Time Topic Activity
9:00 Welcome+Syllabus
9:10 Introduction to Linux, motivation Lecture
9:25 The command line (CLI) Lecture+code along
9:45 Navigating the File System Lecture+code along+exercise
9:55 Modifying the file tree Lecture+code along+exercise
10:05 Editors Lecture+code along
10:20 BREAK
10:35 Piping Lecture+code along+exercise
10:55 Finding patterns Lecture+code along+exercises
11:15 Scripting Lecture+code along
11:30 Hints and tricks Lecture+code along
11:45 More time for exercises
11:55 Summary
12:00 END

Preparations

In order to type along and do the exercises, please prepare your course environment now:

  1. Login to the system you are using (Tetralith, your own computer, other system)
  2. Create a directory to work in (mkdir intro-linux) and then switch to it (cd intro-linux)
    • NOTE If you are working on Tetralith, first switch to your working directory: cd /proj/r-matlab-julia-naiss/users/YOUR-USERNAME
  3. Download the exercises with wget https://github.com/hpc2n/intro-linux/raw/refs/heads/main/exercises.tar.gz
  4. Extract the exercises with tar zxvf exercises.tar.gz
  5. Enter the directory that was created: cd exercises