Physics & Astronomy
Unix Platforms
Logging On
You should have a password and a PIN for the door to TH 123,
issued in the Physics and Astronomy Department office, TH 335;
or you may have logged into th123-12 remotely with your
P&A login account.
To log onto one of the Linux workstations, press the <enter> key,
and the logon prompt should appear.
Users should remember to leave the monitor powered on after logging out.
(If someone left the computer logged on, log him/her out, below.)
th123-33:logon%
Enter your user name. Then enter your password.
You can now execute system commands and run programs from the command line.
Refer to the Unix Tutorial for some guidelines.
However, most users will want to run jobs from the KDE desktop.
The P&A Unix/Linux systems use Kerberos for password management.
Here's a pointer to MIT's documentation for the
Kerberos authentication system.
Opening the KDE Desktop
This GUI provides a working environment similar to those of Windows or the
Macintosh operating systems.
To start the KDE desktop, enter the startx command from the keyboard:
th123-33:bland% startx &
The desktop should load. On the taskbar at the bottom of the screen
will be various icons. Click on the lower-left-hand button, then
select an xwin terminal window. (There are various types of
terminal windows; the instructions on this page have been tested
mainly in xterm windows.) Experienced users usually keep
several of these windows open at once. They can be used to edit
files, read email, and start applications such as IDL, MatLab, Mathematica,
and Unix utilities. Hint: you can change the font size by
right-clicking the mouse with <ctrl> held down.
Email
The recommended way to read your email is using
pine. From a terminal window (or telnet or ssh), enter
th123-33:bland% pine
The first time you run the program, it will ask to set up some
files. Just say yes to everything.
This Unix program is not as glitzy as Eudora or MS Access.
However, it has the advantage that your email remains on the Unix
server, and you can always find it, from any workstation, from your
computer at home, etc.
Notes on Email
Printing
The printers in TH123 are available to all P&A computer users.
Both Unix/Linux machines and MS-Windows machines can spool print jobs
to them. Refer to Printers for more details.
Win4lin
This feature lets you run MS-Windows 98 as
an application running under the Linux operating system! (Yes, we DO
still pay a license fee to Microsoft.) Most of the useful and endearing
features of a PC running windows are reproduced here. (See WINDOWS
SYSTEMS below.) In particular, the TH 123 printers are available,
and Unix files can be mounted with Samba.
The main desirable feature which is lacking is cut and paste between
Linux and Windows. Such communication has to be
carried out by saving files (text, jpegs, etc) on one system, then
opening them on the other. It is also not possible to access the
CD-ROM or floppy drive, or to install your own programs.
To access win4lin, connect to the server dunsel.
(Contact the system administrator for a win4lin account on dunsel.)
th123-32:bland% ssh dunsel
A window should open on your terminal looking just like the MS-Windows
98 screen. Log on, using your P&A Department logon and password.
Now you should be able to use MS-Windows and MS-Windows-based software.
Mathematica
This famous do-your-thinking-for-you
program is available to us in various ways, with the license
conditions and availablility changing often.
Log onto one of the Linux stations in TH 123. Enter startx to
run the KDE desktop.
Open a terminal window (icon on taskbar at bottom of
screen), and run Mathematica:
quark:bland% mathematica &
A Mathematica icon should appear at once in the lower left-hand
corner of the desktop, and in a few seconds a Mathematica window
will open. If you instead receive a message to the effect
that the proper fonts are not installed, something is
wrong. Try moving to another workstation. If this does not
work, try this: when the message box comes up informing you
that the proper fonts are not installed, try dismissing it by
clicking on the square box in the upper right-hand corner of
the dialogue box (rather than responding either "Continue" or
"Exit"). This seems to work.
Here is a Mathematica command to enter, just to make
sure that it is working:
Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 4 Pi}]
After typing the rest,
execute the instruction with <shift><enter>. (Just
pressing the <enter> key moves to a new line, but does not
execute the instruction.) A graph of two cycles of a sine wave
should appear.
Mathematica Tutorial
Running IDL
This fortran-like programming package can be
run directly on any of the Linux machines in TH 123, as well as on
several other machines in the Department. Furthermore, any other
computer on the internet can connect to one of the TH123 machines and
run IDL.
IDL runs best
from an xterm window. If you are not in a xterm window, open one
as follows:
th123-11:bland% xterm &
Now when you run IDL you will have the benefit of a buffer of
previous instructions, accessible using the up-arrow key.
Here is a short IDL example. (The full path for IDL is /u5/idl/bin/idl .)
th123-11:bland% idl
IDL Version 5.5a (linux x86). (c) 2001, Research Systems, Inc.
Installation number: 303259-1.
Licensed for use by: California State University
IDL> plot,indgen(100)
IDL>
This should give a plot of a straight line. To save the plot as a
jpeg graphics file:
IDL> write_jpeg,´temp1.jpg´,tvrd()
This should leave a file named temp1.jpg on your working directory.
It can be displayed on a web page or imported into a WORD document.
To see what is on the file, you can print it out, and display it
on the screen:
th123-31:bland% ls *.jpg
th123-31:bland% lpr temp1.jpg
th123-31:bland% lpq -Php1 status
th123-31:bland% xv temp1.jpg
If you find another window blocking part of the graph, try turning
the backingstore on, in the xwin32 configuration routine.
For more about printing, see the link at the top of the page.
For a good pdf-based help facility, enter from any command line,
th123-11:bland% idlman &
The Adobe Acrobat Reader should open with all IDL manuals available.
IDL Tutorial
MatLab
MatLab is a programming and display package with very good graphics.
To run it on any Linux machine,
th123-21:bland% matlab&
Pretty soon a MatLab icon will appear, and later some windows will open.
Figure out which one to type into (you may have to turn numlock off), and enter
plot(1:100)
This will make a nice plot, with interactive scaling, etc. You can
export the figure as a jpeg file, then import it into Word, post it
on a wep page, etc. MatLab should also print directly to the
system printer, in TH 123.
MatLab Tutorial
StarOffice
In general (but for the first time you run StarOffice, see
below) you can start
the StarOffice program from a command line, by entering
th123-33:bland% office &
(The ampersand detaches the task from the terminal window so you can
use it later for something else before the office task terminates.) A
sort of special desktop or window for the StarOffice suite opens, and
you can launch the word processor, the spread-sheet program, etc.
NOTE: The first time that you run StarOffice from your account,
you have to do something special first. From a terminal window opened
from the KDE desktop, enter the special command
th123-33:bland% start-star-office
A setup program will run. Just fight your way through it via the path
of least resistance. In the big Information box you should probably enter
SFSU (for the institution), your name, and your email.
Otherwise take the defaults.
There will be a message about Java,
asking if jdk1.3.1 or /usr/local/jdk1.3.1 is the correct location. It is.
When the setup program exits, it will have created a
directory named office52 on your main user directory,
and will have created an alias for office which starts the StarOffice program.
You can then use it as shown just above. The first time you run StarOffice
itself, you will get a dialog box called Autopilot Internet Setup; just
choose "Don't Use the Internet."
See Star Office Suite
Miscellaneous
-
IRAF tip:
To print a graphics window (from inside imexam):
when the cursor is a blinking circle inside an image window, type:
=g
:,snap
Further contributions will be appreciated...
Unix/Linux System Commands.
It is good to learn some of the basic commands used by the
Unix/Linux operating systems, as directed from a command line (as
opposed to a GUI interface). They are cryptically named and hard
to learn about. Here are some of them. (The comment after the
command is not part of the command and should not be typed at the
keyboard.)
th123-12:bland% ls List the files and sub-directories of the current working directory.
th123-12:bland% mkdir test1 make a subdirectory named test1
th123-12:bland% cd test1 change to subdirectory test1
th123-12:bland% pwd print working directory
th123-12:bland% who List users on the computer
th123-12:bland% man ls man is the old-fangled help program.
th123-12:bland% info ls info is the new-fashioned help program.
th123-12:bland% pico temp1.txt Run the text editor pico
If you are unfamiliar with the Unix/Linux environment, refer to the
Unix tutorial.
Logging Off the System
To close the desktop and log yourself out at the same time,
first right-click with the mouse on the desktop background and select "logout";
confirm your intention in the dialogue box which pops up.
NOTE: DO NOT select "lock screen".
There is a bug in this feature which makes it impossible to unlock the
screen afterwards.
After your graphics screen exits, you must also exit from your command-line login,
by typing 'exit'.
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