[SPARCbook] Help

[sunder]

Oscar.G.Farah at census.gov wrote:
> 
> HELP!
> 
> 1.  When using Linux or Windows 2000, I can press the up button and recall
> previous commands; this is very useful to me since I am a lousy typist.
> Can you do that with UNIX on a 3XP??

Keep in mind Solaris isn't Linux.  A lot of GNU utilities come preinstalled with Linux.  These don't come with Solaris, but you can
download them.

What you're looking for is bash or tcsh.  Go download and install these from www.sunfreeware.com, and get them for the correct
version of Solaris that you're running.

They'll be in compressed Sun Package format, so you'll have to have gzip first.

For example if you have  downloaded bash-2.0-Sol26-sparc.pkg.gz
type in gzip -d downloaded bash-2.0-Sol26-sparc.pkg.gz  Which will uncompress the package to bash-2.0-Sol26-sparc.pkg

You can then install it with pkgadd -d bash-2.0-Sol7-sparc.pkg

It should show up as /usr/local/bin/bash

You'll have to edit /etc/passwd to switch your default shell to bash, but be careful when you type in the path or you won't be able
to log in.  Also you shouldn't switch the root account to use bash.  Switch your user account.  (You should only login as root to
fix problems.  It's a huge security risk if you run the wrong program, etc.)

 
> 2.  With Linux I can use the alias command to replace a long command with
> a short string; viz. if I issue the command dir='ls -aFl ' then to get "ls
> -aFl" all I need to do is issue the command "dir".  This does not seem to
> work with the 3XP; when I issue the command dir='ls -aFl', the machine
> accepts it but when I type "dir" I get a "dir - not recognized" response?

Once you install bash, you can type in alias BLAH='ls'
Now when you type in BLAH it will give you a directory listing.


-- 
----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---------------------------
 + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\
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<--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you   \/|\/
  /|\  :masked killer, but  |don't email them, or put them on a web  \|/
 + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often.
--------_sunder_ at _sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------