The man page
TIP ON GETTING STARTED:
One of the most important things to do in Grant's and my text adventure is to always hit the "ls" button first. This shows you the objects you can do something with on that screen. Remember, each screen is a directory (folder) in Unix.
"Almost all substantial UNIX and Unix-like operating systems have extensive documentation known as man pages (short for "manual pages"). The Unix command used to display them is man. Each page is a self-contained document." - Wikipedia
Here, we'll give you some tips on how to play the text adventure.
- talk: any time you see a person; fgrep, bar_owner, frank, etc., you probably want to talk to them.
- ls: the LiSt command. This will give you a list of all the objects (including sub-directories) in a directory
- fgrep: grep for "fixed pattern searches" (Wikipedia). This is the librarian in The 'Nix
- usr: the USeR data in Unix. This is used for various user profiles in the text adventure.
- file: "a standard Unix program for determining the type of data contained in a file." - Wikipedia, 5/3/07 Use this to find out information about objects in the text adventure.
- bin: Essential command binaries that need to be available in single user mode; for all users (e.g., cat, ls, cp). - Wikipedia, 5/3/07 Bin makes a cameo appearence in the text adventure.
- ftp: File Transfer Protocol. Not just for Unix anymore! *two thumbs up and huge smile*
- mv: MoVe. This moves files and directory without copying it. This is what you do to the bad guys in The 'Nix. Kill is another Unix command, but for the text adventure we decided we'd be pacifists.
- help: this is the quick help, not the manual. Used in the text adventure for, well, quick help.
- pwd: Present Working Directory...or print the current working directory. Whatever you call, it, it's where you are, directory wise. Use this in the text adventure to orient yourself...though it's not too much use in a linear text adventure. Hopefully improvements will be made since we are making the project open source. You'll need Flash to edit it.
- man: opens the user manual. This isn't used in the text adventure, but on the site. In fact, you're reading our short "man" page.
- grep: grep is the search tool in Unix. This is you, in the adventure, because you are searching for the missing documents. "The name, 'grep', derives from the command used to perform a similar operation, using the Unix text editor ed g/re/p which means "search globally for lines matching the regular expression, and print them". - Wikipedia, 5/3/07
There are other usage tips when you rollover the buttons in the text adventure.
If you think anything else should be added to our man page, please e-mail the webmaster at whitdoug@email.unc.edu