paper https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/cs262/unix.pdf
title: The UNIX Time-Sharing System
author: Dennis M. Ritchie and Ken Thompson
Bell Laboratories
To help you as you read:
By the end of section three, you should understand the differences between ordinary files, directories, and special files.
By the end of section four (along with section three), you should be able to explain what happens when a user opens a file. For instance, if a user opens /home/example.txt, what does the UNIX file system do in order to find the file’s contents? You should understand this in detail (e.g., at the i-node level).
As you read, you may also find it helpful to think about the following:
What things in UNIX are named?
How does naming in UNIX compare to naming in DNS? How do layering and hierarchy apply (if at all)?
Before you come to this recitation, write up (on paper) a brief answer to the following (really—we don’t need more than a sentence or so for each question):
What is UNIX?
How is its filesystem designed?
Why was it designed to work that way?
(starting with section 5).
After reading section 5, you should understand the basics of processes in UNIX (e.g., how fork() works, how memory is shared, how processes communicate). After reading section 6, you should understand the basics of the shell. For instance, you should be able to describe what happens if you type sh into the UNIX shell (how many processes would be running?). Sections 7–10 wrap up the authors’ discussions on UNIX.
As you read, think about the following:
What 6.033 concepts are exemplified by UNIX?
What design principles, or objectives, do you think the authors were following as they developed UNIX?
Before you come to this recitation, write up (on paper) a brief answer to the following (really—we don’t need more than a couple sentences for each question).
Your answers to these questions should be in your own words, not direct quotations from the paper.
What does the UNIX shell do?
How does it work?
Why is it useful?
As always, there are multiple correct answers for each of these questions.