Other commands

There are a few other commands, which you may find useful:

clear - clears the screen

uname - this displays information about the system the most common switch used with this is "-a"

student@debian:~$  uname -a
Linux debian 2.2.20 #1 Sat Apr 20 12:45:19 EST 2002 i586 unknown
    Linux debian 2.2.20 #1 Sat Apr 20 12:45:19 EST 2002 i586 unknown
    1.    2.      3.       4.         5.                      6.
 
  1. the OS name, could be Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc.

  2. the hostname

  3. the version of the kernel currently running

  4. how many times this kernel had been compiled

  5. the compilation date

  6. the architecture it was compiled for

last - indicates last logins of users, and on which terminals, it reports on a file called wtmp.

student@debian:~$ last
student  pts/0        192.168.0.5      Thu Feb 19 03:01   still logged in   
root     pts/0        192.168.0.5      Thu Feb 19 02:58 - 03:00  (00:02)    
student  tty2                          Thu Feb 19 02:56   still logged in   
reboot   system boot  2.2.20-idepci    Thu Feb 19 02:56          (02:15)    
student  pts/0        192.168.0.5      Thu Jan 29 22:32 - 23:57  (01:24)    
root     pts/0        192.168.0.5      Thu Jan 29 22:32 - 22:32  (00:00)    
student  tty1        192.168.0.5      Thu Jan 29 22:30 - 22:32  (00:02)    
root     tty1                          Thu Jan 29 22:15 - down   (01:42)    
reboot   system boot  2.2.20-idepci    Thu Jan 29 22:14          (01:42)    
root     tty1                          Sun Jan 25 12:28 - 12:29  (00:01)    
reboot   system boot  2.2.20-idepci    Sun Jan 25 14:26         (4+09:31)   

wtmp begins Sun Jan 25 14:26:47 2004
        

tty - tells you which terminal you are currently on

student@debian:~$ tty
/dev/tty1