MCDONALD OBSERVATORY / DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY COMPUTING Index      previous   |   next   Graduate Student PCs Due to a bequest, the Astronomy Department is able to purchase new PCs for each of the incoming graduate students. This is a relatively new program and we are still experimenting with how to best provide graduate students with desktop computing access. For example, we will be completely reworking the software on all existing graduate machines in the next year. We are very much interested in feedback on how useful the machines are to you, how you use the machines, and what we could install on the machines to make them more useful to you. We have configured these machines with a dual boot capability so that they can run either Windows or GNU/Linux. The Windows configuration offers Microsoft Office applications as well as SSH communications utilities. The GNU/Linux configuration offers a standard UNIX/X-windows environment, access to our standard repository of data reduction software, and a variety of other useful utilities (gimp, LaTex, etc.). Please note that GNU/Linux is not binary compatible with Sun Solaris, so all software must be rebuilt for Linux. Also, this means that sharing data between the Suns and Linux systems is not completely trivial. Note that the Department retains ownership of these machines. The Computing Services Group will retain root access and will periodically update the machines for security and software patches. However, each user is responsible for what happens on his/her machine, so please report any unauthorized or strange activity. The machines are configured to provide a standard user environment, access to our software libraries, and as much security as possible. Please speak with one of the computing staff before making changes to the operating systems. If you would like a piece of software installed, it is possible there is either a precompiled binary available or that others in the department might require a similar package. A 1.2 TB RAID array is available for grad student use, mounted as /raid1/preakness on the grad student machines. Due to the nature of our RAID system, the array can have one hard drive fail without losing any data. Even with this redundancy, it is remotely possible that a multi-disk failure could cause the array to fail. Currently, the array is not regularly backed up. Please do not keep the only copy of your thesis on the array. If you have questions regarding the mass storage arrays, please see Chris Wilkinson. Available Documentation There are considerable amounts of online information in the form of the UNIX man pages (/usr/share/man, /usr/dt/man, /opt/local/man, and /opt/local/X11R6/man). Sun's Answerbook and SunSolve online documentation, and in various Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) files in /opt/local/doc. UT Libraries provides access to computer books online. Many O'Reilly books are among the collection at netlibrary.com. (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/books/etext.html#computer) Most of our paper manuals are available for loan from the computing staff. They include operating system manuals, basic books on UNIX, as well as IDL and IRAF manuals. Please see Chris Wilkinson if you are looking for something specific. Index      previous   |   next

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