Beginner's Guide to Matrix

This is a guide to Matrix for beginners. If you're looking for help on your Matrix webpages, or using Matrix as filestorage, see Mal's tutorials. This is a guide to actually logging on to Matrix and using it to talk to other users, chat, messaging services, newsgroups etc. Commands/things you type are in red and variables/'fill in the blanks' are in square brackets. If it seems really confusing, don't hesitate to ask any questions, either from me or support{at}netsoc.tcd.ie. It takes a while to get used to UNIX, but it's worth it.

- Helena. helena{at}netsoc.tcd.ie. December 2001.

P.S. Mistakes, omissions, etc, are not my fault! I'm only a user! This is everything I know!

Table of Contents

1. Logging On
2. Editing files & Moving around
3. Getting info on other users
4. Talking to other users
5. Email
6. Chatting: IRC
7. Newsgroups
8. Other messaging services: AIM & ICQ.
9. Tetris
10. DART Timetables
11. The Web in Plain Text
12. Logging Out

1. Logging On

Your Matrix username and password were sent to your college email address when the new Matrix was set up. You'll need to use SSH to log into it. This basically means your password is encrypted as it's sent over the network.

PC Users: You can dowload Putty from http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/putty.exe. You can either save it to your student filestorage, or on your PC at home and run it whenever you need it. Or you can choose 'Run this program from this location'. Make sure to check the 'SSH' button.

Alternatively, on college PCs, you can use the SSH client which is under Start | Programs.

MAC Users: In college, use MacSSH which is under Network & Servers in the Launcher. Make sure to check the 'SSH' box.

The hostname is matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie, and you have your username and password.

Once you're logged in, you'll get a promt that looks like this!

7:46pm username@matrix [~]>

Congratulations, you're logged into Matrix!

From here on, everything is done with the keyboard, so put your mouse away... don't try to scroll up or down. Think typing commands. No more pointy-clicky.

2. Editing files & Moving around

pico is a text editor that makes plain text files, like Notepad in Windows, or SimpleText on a Mac. The instructions are on the bottom of the screen at all times. When it says ^G, for example, that means hit Control+G. Use your arrow keys to move around what you've typed, and Control+X to exit and save. To start Pico type pico.

There's more pico help at

Commands for moving around your directory:

cd changes directories.
eg. cd www changes into the directory 'www'. If you don't list the directory to change to it'll take you back to your home directory. If you've no directories, you'll have to make themn first using mkdir. eg. mkdir www.

ls -la lists all the files you have.
cp oldname newname copies the file from oldname to the file newname.
mv oldname newname moves the file from oldname to the file newname, and deletes the original.
eg. cp robert.html www/bob.html will move the file index.html into the directory 'www', rename it bob.html, and delete the original.

More basic UNIX help at http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/

3. Getting info on other users

finger [username] to get more info on a user including their .plan. Traditionally, a plan is supposed to be information on what projects and things a user is working on. People generally put in quotes or other bits of information. To edit your own plan file type pico .plan, and save it as you exit. To change the rest of your finger information, type chfn.

who to see what command users last typed and how long they've been logged on for.

last -[number] [username] to see the information about that last [number] of times a user has logged in.

To get information about people logging in and out as you're logged on, make a .login file. (Type pico .login) Put the following in it set watch = ( 1 any any ) and you'll be able to see the busy bees of Matrix logging in and out. Once you edit your .login file you'll need to logout and login again for it to have effect.

Type ~mackers/bin/logins to see what no life losers, I mean, dedicated users, have been logged in the most.

To get info on TCD students in general, you can use tel.

tel s=helena will give you all students named Helena, as you can see there are 21 of us. tel group=g0233, will reveal what course this Helena does. (Please stop laughing at my middle name). This is useful for things like tel s=jackson, which shows there there's no Joshua Jackson enrolled in TCD this year. Shame.

4. Talking to other users: hey

Hey is a useful little program for talking to other people on Matrix.

Type hey [username], hit return, type your message, hit return, and then hit control+D to send. If you want to send the another message, hit the up arrow and Matrix will give you the last command you typed, in this case hey [username].

If you're in another programs and someone heys you and you want to clear the screen, hit Control+L.

If you don't want to be able to recieve messages from other users, type mesg n when you log in.

Here's the DCU (Redbrick) help file about hey.

talk will open a screen where you and another user can type simultaneously. It's shite and nobody uses it. I just feel you should know about it because it's an old UNIX thing.

5. Email: pine

pine will let you check your college mail and Netsoc email. Like Pico, the instrictions are on the screen. It reads off the same files as college Webmail, so if you delete mails here, they'll be deleted when you go into Webmail. This used to be useful for checking your email away from college, but since they brought in Webmail it's a bit pointless. When it prompts you for a truxa1.tcd.ie password, type your college usename and password. Type ? for help.

Here's an in-depth tutorial on Pine.

6. Chatting: bitchx

bitchx is a program that lets you use IRC, Internet Relay Chat. If you've use a program like mIRC for the PC before, you're familiar with IRC and bitchx is just a text version of that. Type bitchx [nickname] [server]. For example, bitchx foxybitch irc.isdnet.fr. (I advise against using that nickname. The server's good though)

See http://www.irchelp.org for more info on what IRC is and how to use it. bitchx is cranky and compliated. I've been using it for years and I can still only get it to do the basics, which I present for you below.

Once you're logged onto a server, type /list *thingie* to get all channels with the string 'thingie' in their titles
/join #[channel] to join a channel.
/msg nickname to privately message a user,
/me waves to convey actions, eg. foxybitch waves
/server [newserver] to change servers
/nick [newnickname] to change nicknames.
/help for help.
/quit to, eh, quit.

Here's a a basic guide to IRC, with links to more complex things.

7. Newsgroups: slrn

Hit a to start subscribing to groups. tcd.talk might be of interest to you. If you're not sure what else you'd like to read, try typing your interest with asterisks around it, for example a then return, then *radiohead* will list all the Radiohead newsgroups. Irish newsgroups start with ie.*, TCD ones with tcd.*

Slrn is finicky because it's text based an operates in two windows, but it's easy once you get the hang of it.

Edit your .slrnrc file to edit what your realname comes up as when you send messages and other preferences.

Hit ? for help. Make sure you've got setenv EDITOR pico in your .login file if you want to use pico to edit your posts. Once you edit your .login file you'll need to logout and login again for it to have effect. For more on newsgroups (or USENET) see http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/zen/zen-1.0_6.html#SEC31. For more info on slrn see this help page.

8. Other Messaging sercices: AIM & ICQ

micq is, you guessed it, a text-based version of ICQ. Type /help for help and you should be able to figure it out. Again, this is the onlt way you'll be able to use ICQ on college computers.

9. Tetris