Monday, May 19, 2008

iPod Touch Term-vt100 application

Hi there:)
Today I'll explain how to use your iPod as unix terminal with WiFi connection and give you few tips on using Unix terminal.



This is basic application, which could be installed via Installer application after jailbreak. You can find it in section System Term-vt100. You'll also need BSD Subsystem for proper work of basic functions.

By the way, iPod is "PC" - web server, application server, Db etc. you can install all of that if needed.

Right after installation you can launch it and try useful menu i call it HotKey. Tap on terminal screen you should see something like this

ls exit cd
clear locate
grep find less
123... misc ;~)

1 ls is a submenu for directory listing options - select it and try clean "ls".
You should get current directory files and folders. "ls -la" is a standard command for listing advanced info of files and directories for full set of options description check this.

2 exit is a direct command to exit terminal to restore terminal you'll have to restart your device.

3 cd Change Directory command with few keys cd ~ navigates you to your home dir.
cd .. nav to up directory in a tree. "cd /" navs you to iPod root.

4 clear - cleans terminal.

5 locate - command to locate programs

6 grep is text search command for full reference please check this article.

7 find is a file and folder search utility.

8 less prints file content into terminal

9 123... is where you can find numbers for advanced commands.

10 misc contains useful features like terminal customization -

10.1 config, where you can setup you own menu terminal options, etc.

10.2 ps process listing. analog of windows task manager

10.3 sudo is a set of commands related to administration features execute something with administrator rights etc. (it is not implemented on iPod but available on iPhone).

10.4 nano subset of commands like page up/ page down for fast scroll and few more.

11 ;~) special chars fast access.


well it is a menu. fuf...

Lets check what we can do with it.

check build-in Unix functions.

Good luck:)
If any questions or suggestions please post a comment or write me email.

I'm looking for co authors for my Blog.

5 comments:

lwz said...

How do we find out the keys like ctrl, alt, meta, etc. for use in Terminal and other applications? I would need it for working in nano, for instance.

Georgy said...

you can use shortcuts in menu.
It is customizable. I general you need ctrl alt and meta to call some function or action. This buttons doesn't presented on standard iPod Touch or iPhone keyboard, but you can add shortcuts (icons) to you terminal menu.

lwz said...

some of them like left, right, up down, ctrl were added, but they were in the form of the dot and some other character like > < ^ V, etc., so I was wondering where to get those extra characters for other function keys. Also, some of them -- the left and right keys (dot+< or dot+>) -- don't work when typed out while others that are like specific to nano works -- eg. (dot+X) to quit -- is there any reason for this?

Georgy said...

i don't know, cause i'm not an author of the term app. I guess you should provide your own version of the keyboard app.
I have a sample of Russian keyboard app. And i'm going to start development talks over the blog. It could be first topic, what do you think?

Are you with me?

lwz said...

I could try, but I'm new to the Mac OS kind of stuff (much more used to Windows)...