Resources

Table of Contents

Textbook

The class has one required textbook: Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective, 3rd Edition by Bryant and O’Hallaron. We will also be using an online Wikibook, C Programming, when we learn about C programing.

Learning Resources

Here are some other resources that might help you:

Linux Command Summary

For more information on the following commands, type man and the name of the command to see a help manual for that command. You can open another terminal window at the same time to type the man command and see the helpful text. Some commands, like alias, are built into bash. For these, type man bash to get help. If you type man <command> and the response is No manual entry for <command>, it is likely built into bash. Online help is also available for shell built-in commands and other core commands.

Command Description
alias define an alternative to a command
cat concatenate files and print on standard output​
cd change the current directory to another​
chmod change file mode bits
clear clear the terminal screen​
cp copy files and directories​
df report file system disk space usage
diff compare files line by line
echo print a string of text
exit end shell session and close terminal
find search for files in a directory hierarchy
free display amount of free and used memory in the system
grep scan files and print lines that match patterns
groups print the groups a user is in
head output the first part of files
history list recently typed commands
kill send a signal to a process (usually to end it)
less, more show the contents of a text file​
ls list directory contents​
man show help information about Linux commands
mkdir make directories
mv move or rename files​
passwd change user password
ping send an echo request to another machine
ps list the current processes
pwd print name of current directory​
rmdir remove empty directories
ssh login to a remote machine
tail output the last part of files
tar an archive utility for (de)compressing files
top display Linux processes
uname print system information
who show who is logged on

If you want even more commands at a glance, check out this cheat sheet.

Setting up Wi-Fi

If you want to connect to your doorbell off campus, you can follow the following steps:

1: Set up Wi-Fi connection

You will need to do this step in the lab unless you have any other way to connect to your raspberry pi.

When connected to your pi, run the command sudo raspi-config. This will bring up a terminal-based GUI that you can navigate using the arrow and enter keys.

Once inside, navigate to 1 System Options > S1 Wireless Lan. Put your network name in the SSID field, and your network password in the passphrase field. You may complete this step as many times as you wish for as many networks as you wish.

Note that certain secure networks such as eduroam will not work with this connection method.

Once you have entered all the network information, leave the configuration GUI by selecting <Finish>.

You can confirm that your network was properly configured by running sudo cat /etc/wap_supplicant/wap_supplicant.conf. Your network and password should be listed there.

Step 2: Connecting at home

Your pi should now be able to connect to the Wi-Fi network(s) that you entered in at the lab. When you’re at home, power your pi with a micro-usb cord plugged into the bottom port. On a computer connected to the same network, you can set up VS code to ssh into your computer as we described in Lab 1.

If you use a Mac, you may need to adjust some system security settings to allow the VS code remote connection extension to SSH into your doorbell: Go to the settings app, Privacy & Security > Local Network > Visual Studio Code, and toggle it to allowed.

You should now be able to control your Pi at home!

Terminal customization

Helpful Tutorials