Frequently Used Commands and Programmes
Some of the often used supported software and commands available on DAMTP unix computers.
Some programs are only available for Linux, most should be available on Linux, if one is not on the Linux setup is should be marked with a "*". Programs which are available on only a limited number of hosts will be marked with a "!", click on the program name to find out which hosts.
For most programs and commands documentation can be obtained with one or more of:
man program-name
or
info program-name
or
program-name --help
Email the help-desk with programs to be added to this list, include a brief description of the command.
Links by initial letter
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Software list
- access-list
- which computers you can access
- acroread
- Read pdf files
- antiword
- View text from microsoft document files
- bash
- Default shell used in damtp other available ones are listed in /etc/shells, use chsh to change yours
- bunzip2
- uncompress a file that ends in .bz2
- bzip2
- compress a file
- cal
- display calendar - this is not calendar software see ical
- cammail
- publish/hide @cam email address
- cammail sendhere
- redirect your @cam email to damtp
- cd
- Change Directory
- cleanup
- delete or compress uneeded files.
- convert
- convert graphics file from one format to another
- dir
- list your files; the proper unix command for this is ls
- dirs
- what directory you are in ; the proper unix command for this is pwd
- d2u
- Convert text mac/dos files to unix
- dos2unix
- Convert text mac/dos files to unix
- du
- Calculate how much disk space the current directory is using
- dvips
- convert dvi to ps
- emacs
- editor
- exim
- f77
- Fortran Compiler
- firefox
- Webbrowser (unsupported)
- ftnchek
- Fortran 77 program checker
- fvwm
- default X window system
- gaim
- instant messaging client
- gcc
- the GNU c compiler
- gimp
- image manipulation software
- gnuplot
- data plotting
- grip
- linux cd player [xplaycd for old setup]
- gs
- ghostscript postscript interpretter
- gv
- ghostview graphical postscript previewer (uses ghostscript)
- hostname
- what computer you are using
- ical
- calendar software
- id
- what groups you are in
- idl
- programming
- ImageMagick
- graphics. Check the man page for the list of commands this package provides
- jobs
- list background jobs started from this shell
- konqueror
- the KDE graphical interface to your files
- latex
- typesetting
- latex2html
- typesetting
- ls
- list your files
- lpr
- lpq
- check a printer's queue
- lprm
- remove a job from a printer's queue
- mailaddress
- Tells you your mail address you should give to external people.
- maple
- programming
- mathematica
- programming
- matlab
- programming, limited number of licenses (see octave)
- mozilla
- default web browser
- netscape
- web browser. Netscape is now replaced by mozilla. Netscape 4 is still available on older computers.
- nice
- set the priority on your program, often used to give a program a low priority so others can also use the computer its running on.
- OpenOffice
- edit and view office format documents
- octave
- like matlab but free
- passwd
- change your password
- pdflatex
- convert tex file to pdf
- perl
- programming
- pine
- ps
- List processes
- ps2ascii
- convert postscript document to plain text
- ps2pdf
- convert postscript to pdf format
- pstoedit
- converts .ps files to a range of different formats eg .fig
- python
- programming
- quota
- view your quota
- R
- a language for statistical computation and graphics
- ripmime
- mainly used for email
- rtf2ps
- Ted wrapper for translating rtf files to postscript
- rtf2pdf
- Ted wrapper for translating rtf files to pdf
- samba
- screen
- soffice
- typesetting
- ssh
- used to connect to another computer securely
- slog
- a locally written script, which allows you to ssh to another host, but open
it in a new windows. Usage is
slog host -l username, unless from a DAMTP computer to anotherslog host. - Ted
- editor for working with RTF documents. Starts with a T not t.
- tetex
- typesetting
- tex
- typesetting
- thunderbird
- Email program (unsupported)
- txt2tex
- typesetting
- unzip
- uncompress zip archives, see also zip
- uptime
- How long since this computer was last rebooted, and how busy is it.
- users
- Who else is logged into this computer
- vi
- editor
- visiblemail
- publish/hide @damtp.cam.ac.uk email address
- hermes webmail,
- damtp webmail
- who
- who is logged into this computer and what are they doing
- whoami
- who does the computer think is typing this command
- writecd
- local script for writing cds
- xanim
- simple MPEG player
- xdvi
- display dvi files
- xmgrace
- 2D plotting tool
- xfig
- drawing tool and can be used to view .fig files
- xpdf
- another pdf viewer
- xsane
- scanning
- xv
- graphics viewer
- xwrits
- reminds you to take breaks
- zip
- another compression program, useful for giving files to windows users