MCDONALD OBSERVATORY / DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY COMPUTING Index      previous   |   next   Introduction This document forms a basic picture of the computing services offered by the Department and Observatory. It makes an effort to emphasize the facilities that are of particular interest to newly arrived researchers, including the following: data analysis software, hardware environment, and user facilities (including printers, tape backup units, and public workstations). It also describes the current computing staff as well as their areas of expertise, should you need assistance. The computer support group has rather diverse responsibilities, including the following: Make available a consistent set of current research-related software across all UNIX-based platforms Provide flexible and secure computation facilities Maintain security of all systems connected to our network Provide support for data reduction packages, particularly IRAF Write software for instrument control and data acquisition Provide consulting for new purchases of software and hardware General Architecture of Software Resources In order to provide a consistent set of software across all the machines we manage, the majority of our application software is organized on network disks (/opt/local) which are mounted remotely from a server and can be accessed by other systems via NFS (Network File System). Software is distributed from dust for Sun Solaris and from preakness for GNU/Linux. For both platforms, the standard distributed applications (some of which are listed below) are generally contained in /opt/local/bin. Under Solaris, additional binaries can be found in /opt/local/X11R6/bin and /opt/local/gnu/bin. Data analysis software available includes IRAF (Interactive Reduction and Analysis Facility) from NOAO, STSDAS (Space Telescope Data Analysis System) from STScI, MIDAS from ESO, Lick Mongo, SuperMongo, and PGPLOT. Commercial software includes IMSL (International Mathematical and Statistical Library), IDL (Interactive Data Language from Research Systems Inc.), Maple, and Spyglass. TeX/LaTeX, StarOffice, OpenOffice, nroff/troff, and Adobe Transcript are the main tools for text processing. Utilities include EMACS, X11R6, Adobe Acrobat reader, and ghostscript. The majority of these packages are available both under Sun Solaris and GNU/Linux operating systems. A standard set of compilers are available under both GNU/Linux and Solaris. Solaris features a very stable set of compilers, including Sun C, C++, Fortran 77, and Fortran90. GNU/Linux offers a similar set produced by the GNU project, including gcc, g++, and g77. Because compiler heuristics vary between the equivalent Sun and Linux compilers, a rewrite of your code may be required when transitioning between the two platforms. Commercial compilers are also available for purchase, should a set of compilers available under GNU/Linux be inadequate to your needs. Our network topology is configured to provide maximum system accessibility from each desktop computer connected to our systems. Note that while the Observatory operates several systems for general use, any given individual may find access to more CPU time and more disk space on a given faculty member's private systems. Index      previous   |   next

21 August 2006 McDonald Observatory · The University of Texas at Austin · Austin, Texas 78712 site comments: www@www.as.utexas.edu