Organization
The tutorial is divided into three parts. Part I introduces the shell, the program through which you give commands to the UNIX operating system. It also provides a brief overview of the UNIX filesystem and covers basic operations including file management, controlling file permissions, and printing. Part II focuses on more advanced topics such as shell customization, input/output redirection, processes, and job control. Part III covers the automation of routine tasks and tool-building with shell scripts.

The major parts are divided into several sections, each one presenting a particular topic. UNIX commands relevant to the topic are introduced, and exercises are given to illustrate the topic and teach the basic usage of the commands. It takes roughly one hour to complete each part of the tutorial (beginning, intermediate, and advanced), after which you should have a solid foundation to begin exploring UNIX on your own.

Typeface Conventions

Bold fixed-width	is used to show commands you type in. When instructed to "enter" a command (or other information), you should type the command or information as shown followed by pressing the ENTER key (called RETURN on some keyboards).
Fixed-width	is used to show prompts for commands as well as the output of commands. The output shown in the tutorial exercises is meant to be representative of the output you will see when you enter commands. What you actually see will often differ from what is shown in the examples.
Bold italic	is used for the names of UNIX commands.
Italic	is used to highlight new terms and concepts when they are introduced.