FAQ

Using UNIX

Printing in UNIX

Working with PDF files in UNIX

Miscellaneous

What are man pages?
'Man' in this context is short for 'manual'. Man pages are electronic reference manual pages for UNIX commands. You can display the man page for a command with the command man command. For example, use the command man man to display the manual page for the man command.

You can also search the manual pages by keyword with the command man -k keyword. To select a man page from a different section, use the command man -s section.
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How dow I submit labs?
Students taking the RESOLVE sequence (CSE221, 222 and 321) may submit using the workbence, or by using the rcpp-submit command. Most other classes use the submit command. The general format of the submit command is submit class lab file1 [ file2 ... ]. Your instructor will tell you the class name to submit for. For example, students in a section of CSE360 submitting file1.s and file2.s for lab1 to c360aa would use the command submit c360aa lab1 file1.s file2.s. For more information, see the manual page for submit (man submit).

Note: The submit command will remove any previously submitted files for that lab. If you need to re-submit any file after you have already submitted a lab, you must re-submit all of the lab files.
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How do I change my shell?
You need to submit a request to the Help Desk to get your shell changed. Please include the shell that you wish to use. The default shell is /bin/tcsh. Available shells include /bin/ksh and /bin/bash.
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What configuration files set up my environment?
If you are using tcsh, commands from your .login file are issued when you log in, and commands from your .cshrc are issued when you start a new shell. If you are using ksh or bash, commands from your .profile are issued when you login, and commands from your .bashrc are issued when you start a new shell.
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How do I restore the default configuration files?
Use the command get-defaults. You will be prompted for the files you want to replace.
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Why am I getting host key warnings when using ssh to connect to stdsun.cse.ohio-state.edu?
Because stdsun.cse.ohio-state.edu is an alias for several hosts, as you connect to each one, the host key associated with stdsun will appear to change. If you are using a UNIX variant and have Perl installed, download the stdsun script from ftp.cse.ohio-state.edu, in /usr/local/bin/stdsun. You should then be able to connect using stdsun -l. Be sure to edit the script and provide the location of the perl executable.
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How do I read PDF files?
From a UNIX command prompt, use the command acroread & or acroread filename &.
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How do I convert PDF files to PS files?
From a UNIX command prompt, use the command pdf2ps filename
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I created a cgi-bin directory in my WWW directory, but it doesn't work? Can I run CGI programs in my WWW directory?
For security reasons, CGI programs are not permitted in user WWW directories. You may wish to see if you can achieve the same results with Java applets. Servelets are not permitted.
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How do I cancel a print job?
From a UNIX command prompt, use the command cancel or lprm. Use the commands man cancel and man lprm for more information.
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How do I print from the command line?
Use the command lp -dprinter file
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How do I pretty print from the command line?
Use the command enscript -dprinter -E. To duplex, use the command enscript -dprinter -E -DDuplex:true. Use the command man enscript for more details.
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How do I set/change my default printer?
Set the LPDEST and PRINTER environment variables to the desired printer. Please note that setting these variables in your .cshrc or .login is not recommended, as the system default configuration files try to set these variables depending on where you're logging in from.
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How do I use the timesheet program?
See the Timesheet Quickstart Guides.
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