Hands-on LabIT Fundamentals · Module 01

Lab: Module 01: Computers and Operating Systems

Lab 00: Exploring Your Computer and Operating System

Objective

Identify your operating system, explore the file system hierarchy, and check system resources using command-line tools.

Prerequisites

  • A terminal application:
    • macOS: Terminal.app (pre-installed in Applications > Utilities)
    • Windows: Git Bash (bundled with Git for Windows)
    • Linux: Terminal (pre-installed)
  • No prior IT Fundamentals modules required

Duration

5 to 8 minutes

Instructions

Step 1: Identify Your Operating System (~2-3 min)

In this step you determine which operating system your computer is running.

macOS/Linux:

Open your terminal and run:

uname -a

Expected output (macOS example):

Darwin MacBook-Pro.local 23.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 23.4.0: ... x86_64

Expected output (Linux example):

Linux hostname 5.15.0-91-generic #101-Ubuntu SMP ... x86_64 GNU/Linux

The output shows your OS kernel name, hostname, kernel version, and architecture.

Windows (Git Bash):

Open Git Bash and run:

uname -a

Expected output:

MINGW64_NT-10.0-19045 DESKTOP-ABC1234 3.4.9 ... x86_64 Msys

The MINGW64 prefix indicates you are running Git Bash on Windows.

Windows (PowerShell):

If you prefer PowerShell, run:

systeminfo | findstr /B /C:"OS Name"

Expected output:

OS Name:    Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

✅Tip: For the rest of this lab and the bootcamp, Git Bash is recommended on Windows for command consistency with macOS and Linux.

Step 2: Explore the File System Hierarchy (~2-3 min)

In this step you look at the top-level directories on your system and find your home directory.

macOS/Linux:

List the root directory contents:

ls /

Expected output (macOS example):

Applications  Library  System  Users  Volumes  bin  cores  dev  etc  home  opt  private  sbin  tmp  usr  var

Expected output (Linux example):

bin  boot  dev  etc  home  lib  media  mnt  opt  proc  root  run  sbin  srv  sys  tmp  usr  var

These are the top-level directories that organize your entire system. Key directories include:

  • /home (Linux) or /Users (macOS): where user home directories live
  • /etc: system configuration files
  • /tmp: temporary files
  • /var: variable data such as logs

Display your home directory path:

echo $HOME

Expected output (your username will differ):

/Users/student

Windows (Git Bash):

List the C drive contents:

ls /c/

Expected output:

PerfLogs  Program Files  Program Files (x86)  Users  Windows

Display your home directory path:

echo $HOME

Expected output (your username will differ):

/c/Users/student

Step 3: Check System Resources (~2-3 min)

In this step you check how much RAM and storage your computer has.

macOS:

Check RAM:

sysctl -n hw.memsize | awk '{print $1/1024/1024/1024 " GB"}'

Expected output (your value will differ):

16 GB

Check available storage:

df -h /

Expected output (values will differ):

Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s1  466Gi  120Gi  340Gi    27%    /

The Size column shows total storage and Avail shows free space.

Linux:

Check RAM:

free -h

Expected output (values will differ):

              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           15Gi       4.2Gi       8.1Gi       256Mi       3.1Gi        10Gi
Swap:         2.0Gi          0B       2.0Gi

The total column under Mem shows your total RAM.

Check available storage:

df -h /

Expected output (values will differ):

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       100G   25G   75G  25% /

Windows (Git Bash):

Check RAM:

systeminfo | findstr "Total Physical Memory"

Expected output (your value will differ):

Total Physical Memory:     16,384 MB

Check available storage:

df -h /c

Expected output (values will differ):

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
C:              466G  120G  346G  26% /c

Validation

Confirm the following before moving on:

  • Running uname -a (or equivalent) displays your operating system information
  • Running ls / (or equivalent) displays the root directory contents
  • You can identify how much RAM and storage your computer has

Cleanup

No files were created during this lab. No cleanup is needed.

Challenge (Optional)

Find out how many CPU cores your computer has:

  • Linux: Run lscpu and look for the "CPU(s)" line
  • macOS: Run sysctl -n hw.ncpu
  • Windows (PowerShell): Run (Get-CimInstance Win32_Processor).NumberOfCores
  • Windows (Command Prompt, legacy): Run wmic cpu get NumberOfCores

Compare your CPU core count to the vCPU counts in AWS EC2 instance types (you will learn about these in Module 04 of the bootcamp).

AWS Bootcamp: From Novice to Architect Author: Samuel Ogunti License: CC BY-NC 4.0

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