Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
-- Linus Torvalds
How do I get an account on the system?
You can request one by e-mailing the System Administrator . You need to include:
Once your account is ready, the system administrator will e-mail you with your username and a temporary password (immediately change your password!).
Before you use the Linux Lab, be sure to read the Computing and
Information Technology
Responsible Use Policy . This is the same policy as the one you
agreed to as part of your Room Contract. If you don't live on
campus, by applying for an account you are considered to have
accepted the terms of the policy, that is, don't do anything
naughty!
Where and what are the machines?
The machines are in OlinRice 256. They are all Pentium 4's with 512MB RAM. They are all named with a Math/CS theme: curl, equals,, sum, grad, or, dot, div, plus, minus, tan, cos, sin, and, not, sqrt, log. (All lowercase). The application/data server is cross. The full domain names are <name>.math.macalester.edu
The current system administrators are Adam Nave & Barron Koralesky.
I can't log in!!
Try again, just in case you mistyped your password. Check a few things first:
1. Linux/Unix passwords and usernames are case sensitive. Check the Caps Lock key.
2. When logging in, your password will not necessarily appear on
the screen as you type it in (depending on how you are logging in). It
may appear as stars, or may not be visible at all, such as when
SSHing in to the lab.
3. Could you be over your quota? If so
log into the command line and check.
If you still can't log in, e-mail the System Administrator .
How do I change my password?
1. Log into one of the lab machines and open a terminal window.
2. Type passwd. You will then be
prompted to change your password.
* Note: It takes about 2 - 5 minutes for the change
to propagate through the lab system.
What applications are available in the lab?
The Linux lab has the following software: Mathematica, BlueJ, R,
OpenOffice, Dr. Scheme, Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, GIMP, Acrobat, C/C++
compilers, Java, perl, python, prolog, smalltalk, and plenty more.
That's great, but how do I access these applications?
Try the system menus. If that does not work, open up a terminal
window (the icon that looks like a computer terminal) and type the name
of the application. Most interaction with the system takes place
through the command line. Commands are also case-sensitive, so
make sure you are not forgetting a crucial capital letter
somewhere. Here are some commonly used commands:
| R | - starts the R stats package |
| mathematica | - starts Mathematica |
| matlab | - starts MatLab |
| bluej | - BlueJ java development environm |
| mozilla |
- Mozilla Browser (the open-source version of Netscape) |
| firebird |
-
Mozilla Firebird |
| opera | - Opera web browser |
| drscheme | - Dr. Scheme |
| gimp | - Gimp imaging package (Photoshop for Linux) |
| gcc,
java, perl, python |
-
programing languages/compilers |
| soffice | - OpenOffice |
| acroread | - Adobe Acrobat Reader (.pdf viewer) |
| gv | - Ghost View (.ps viewer) |
* TIP: after typing a few characters of a command
(or filename or directory), if you hit the TAB key, the system will try
to
complete your command for you. It may not work if there are other files
with the same name. If that happens, or the file doesn't exist, the
computer will beep, prompting you to type more of the name or to check
your spelling.
Can I use the lab remotely?
Sure, ssh (Secure SHell) is installed on all of them. It is much safer than telnet because it encrypts your password and all the data you send and recieve. You can ssh to any lab machine if you have an ssh client installed on the machine you are connecting from. You can download a client from cross via anonymous ftp or click here in your browser. Versions are avalible for Linux, Windows and Macintosh.
To use ssh in linux, simply type ssh
<somemachine> . By default, ssh will attempt to
connect
you using the same username that you are currently logged in as.
If that username doesn't exist on the other machine, or you wish
to connect using another account, type:
ssh <username>@<somemachine>
So if you wanted
to connect to machine dot with the login bob, you would type:
ssh bob@dot.math.macalester.edu
The first time you ssh to a machine it will tell you that the host
key was not found in the database and it will ask you if you want to
keep connecting. Type "yes" (not just "y") and it will continue by
asking you for the password.
For more info, peruse these links OpenSSH FAQ, SSH.com's manual, SSH.com's
documentation
Can I transfer data to/from the machines?
Yessiree! Just use 'sftp' or 'scp' to transfer data to/from your
account.
Each user has a quota of 140MB, if you exceed this quota you will not
be able to log in. Users are responsible for keeping
themselves under quota. To check your quota, just type "quota" or
"du -sh ." when you are in your home directory. Make sure
you stay under 140MB! If you are over quota, see the next
topic...
How
do I delete files if I am over quota
and can't log in?
Press <Ctrl><Alt><F1>. That should take
you to a command line log in screen. Log in. Type "quota"
or
"du -sh ." to check your usage. If it is over quota,
delete/compress/move stuff out until you are within quota.
Logout.
Then press <Ctrl><Alt><F7> to get back to an
Xwindows graphical login.
Can I write reports/papers under Linux? Is there a word processor?
OpenOffice is compatible with the MS Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc, including Office 200x versions!) To run OpenOffice just type 'soffice' at the command line.
Now you can use the OpenOffice suite to create reports, handouts, presentations etc. If you would like to save your files in a MS compatible format, simply specify so when saving. You can even save in PDF!
For more information on OpenOffice, please see OpenOffice.org, OpenOffice.org Documentation, or TutorialsForOpenOffice
I need to program in parallel (MPICH or
LINDA), how do I set up my account to do so?
Log in and execute the following two commands:
cp /MathApps/parallel/.tsnet.config ~/
cp /MathApps/parallel/.rhosts ~/
Can I use a USB flash drive with Linux?
Can I use PC floppies with Linux?
Here is the easiest way to access floppies using KDE in the Linux Lab. It is so smooth that even windows/mac users will feel at home!I still don't get it. How do I get more help?
If you still don't understand Linux in general, try finding a book
about it, or search online. One of the best resources is the Linux
Documentation Project: http://www.tldp.org.
There are tons of others, for instance try
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf, or look at some of my
links here.
Another good way to learn
is to ask a friend. You proabably know someone who knows a little
about linux and can show you a thing or two. However, the hands-down
best way to learn linux is to install it yourself and try to make it
do something. The more you use it, the easier it gets!
If you want to know about the usage of a system command such as mdir (from the previous question), then simply use the man command. To get help on mdir, you would type:
man mdir
This will show you a manual page for mdir. You can also use GNU info to get information about commands. Usage is similar:
info mdir
You can also consult the online help pages at http://www.linux.org/help/ .
Why does it say "Please Do Not Reboot the Machines"???
A couple of reasons: Linux machines usually stay online for months at length and only get rebooted for certain types of upgrades etc. There should be no need to reboot on a user's part. Second, Linux/Unix is a multi-user operating system. Chances are that even though you cannot see anyone at the actual physical machine, there is someone logged in remotely. If you shut down the machine, you will kill any applications that they may have been running in the background. An unexpected reboot can also result in sever damage to the machines hard disk and data loss.
If you find that the machines are unresponsive please do not try
to reboot them. Drop an email to the Administrators,
who will take care of it.
What are some useful commands that I should learn?
Here is a list of commands from DOS and their Linux/Unix
equivalents:
| Command | DOS | Linux |
| Display list of files | dir /w, dir | ls, ls -l |
| Display contents of file | type | cat |
| Display file with pauses | type filename | more | more |
| Copy file | copy | cp |
| Find string in file | find | grep, fgrep |
| Compare files | comp | diff |
| Rename file | rename, ren | mv |
| Delete file | erase, del | rm |
| Delete directory | rmdir, rd | rmdir, rm -r |
| Change file protection | attrib | chmod |
| Create directory | mkdir, md | mkdir |
| Change working directory | chdir, cd | cd |
| Get help | help | man, info, apropos |
| Display date and time | date, time | date |
| Display free disk space | chkdsk | df, du |
| Print a file | lpr | |
| Display print queue | lpq | |
| Remove print job | --- | lprm |
For some more commands try this
page at www.justlinux.org.
I wrote and compiled a program, how do I run it?
Linux, by default, does not include the current directory in the
command path. To make it execute a command from the current directory,
add a ./ before a command. If you
compiled a program hello.c without specifying the name of the
executable, Linux/Unix will create an executable a.out. To run
this program, you would type ./a.out
at the prompt.
How do I move files around? Can I access the Novell Network?
Novell network (and other network resources) can be accessed through ftp. The address for the Novell Network is ftp://ftp.servers.macalester.edu/
However, logging in to the Novell Network via ftp is a little different. You have to log in with the username .<username>.stu.mac This is your username in context. When you login to Novell on a Windows machine, it usually fills in the context for you, so you only have to enter your username.
Thus, if my username was Bob and I wanted to login to the server
using the ncftp program, I would type
ncftp -u
.bob.stu.mac ftp.servers.macalester.edu
For more info about logging on to the ftp servers via ftp, see the
CIT
Remote Server Access .pdf document.
Libby Shoop also wrote a nice page about FTPing to the Novell
network. Take a look here:
http://www.macalester.edu/~shoop/courses/CS124_F03/how_to_ftp.html
She also made a nice page about printing:
http://www.macalester.edu/~shoop/courses/CS124_F03/printing.html
Can I check my
Macalester email from the linux machines?
I am a senior,
when does my account get deleted?
As with other Macalester accounts, they may disappear any time
after commencement. Therefore, if you have anything you would like to
keep, please archive it elsewhere. There are no alumni accounts
on the system.
A few last notes: Linux is a powerful computing environment. The more you use it, the easier it gets. Secondly, because of the nature of the operating system and the network, the Linux lab often comes under intruder attacks. Do not pass around your password. If someone needs to use the machines, please advise them to request an account.
To report a problem, please email the Adam Nave or koralesky@macalester.edu.