Notes for the UNIX Clueless

1. LINUX IS CASE-SENSITIVE. For example: Netscape, NETSCAPE and nEtscape are three different commands. Also my_filE, my_file, and my_FILE are three different files. Your user login name and password are also case sensitive. (This goes with the tradition of UNIX and the "c" programming language being case sensitive.)

2. Filenames can be up to 256 characters long and can contain letters, numbers, "." (dot), "_" (underscore), "-" (dash), plus some other not recommended characters.

3. Files with names starting with "." are normally not shown by the ls (list) or dir commands. Think of these files as "hidden". Use ls -a (list with the option "all") to see these files.

4. "/" is an equivalent to DOS "\" (root directory, meaning the parent of all other directories).

5. Under Linux, all directories appear under a single directory tree (there are no DOS-style drive letters).

6. In a configuration file, a line starting with # is a comment.