• man-ray (a dual-processor Ultra 60; Elite 3D m6 graphics)
• breton (an Ultra 10; Elite 3D m3 graphics)

• first (an Ultra 10; Elite 3D m3 graphics)
• second (an Ultra 10; Elite 3D m3 graphics)

This page includes descriptions of particular features of these systems, and assumes you are already familiar with UNIX to a reasonable degree. If you are not, you might consider browsing the LCSR UNIX documentation, and Don Watrous' web page. And remember that you can see documentation on a particular UNIX program by typing "man program".

This page only provides suggestions; feel free to deviate from anything here if you know what you're doing. Any if you have any suggetions of your own, please let us know!

Getting started

When you first log into these machines on console, you will find yourself using the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), which is the Solaris X window manager.

Note: you may need to explicitly set the "Options/Session" to CDE at the login screen for the first two times you log in, for your login to work properly.

Once the window manager starts, a help window appears. (It's fine if you dismiss any window that asks you to register for anything.) Upon reading it, you will find that this window manager works very much the same as other X windows systems. The primary difference is that a Style Manager is used to set the behavior of the window manager, as well as which programs appear when you log in.

The style manager is started by clicking the icon that looks like the one here, and provides a relatively straightforward interface for configuring your window manager. In addition, you can start up or position any windows you like (programs should be started using only the menus, for them to be saved into your configuration). Once you have the setup which you desire, go to "Startup" in the style manager, and press "Set Home Session".

There is quite a bit of software installed for these machines, which is described below. We have set up a script that everyone in the lab should use. To use it, simply add the follwing line to the end of your ".cshrc" file (and be sure there is a blank line after it):

  source /farm/village/setup

Advanced note: if you are using a non-standard shell (such as sh), this script won't work.

We suggest you take a look at the script for yourself. But briefly, here is what it does:

• Allows you to run installed software (for instance, it adds /farm/village/bin to your PATH)
• Specifies locations of particular files or data (such as the cvs repository)
• Changes your default file protections to ensure group work (with regard to sharing files) proceeds smoothly
• Adds a few commands (aliases) that you may find useful or that help streamline group work.

For advanced users: If you don't want to use something in the script, please undo the effect of the command after the source command, instead of making your own copy of the script. It changes fairly often.

Software

The following software packages are installed for use in the lab.

• xv: A program for displaying and converting images
• netpbm package: A set of programs for image conversion and manipulation (see man page for pbm for details)
• workman: Control the CD drive as a CD player
• festival: An open-source, customizable speech synthesizer
• waves: A speech anaylsis, visualization and coding tool

It is also worth mentioning some additional programs that are specific to Solaris:

• audiocontrol: Use this for controlling the volume of sound generated by your machine
• sdtimage: Another program for displaying images, as well as PostScript files

File protections

In UNIX, access to files is determined by file permissions which are changed using the chmod command (and displayed when you type ls -l). Default protections for new files are set using the umask command. Roughly, read and write file access can be granted individually for files and directories within following three categories:

• the user who owns the file (typically, who created it)
• the group who owns the file (the groups command displays your group membership)
• other users on the system

Everyone in THE VILLAGE belongs to a UNIX group called "village". To permit the sharing of files within the lab, you just need to make sure of two things:

• the group owner of that file/directory is village
• the group access is set appropriately (to perhaps allow read or write access)

Based on how your account and the directories in /farm/village are set up, this will probably happen automatically (based on your umask, and that most directories have their "setgid bit" set). If not, the following are uses of the chmod command that will probably come in handy:

To make a directory structure that anyone in the lab can read:
   chmod -R go+u,g-w,o-rw,o+t directory

To make a directory structure that anyone in the lab can read and modify:
   chmod -R go+u,o-rw,o+t directory

To make a directory private:
   chmod -R go-a directory

See the chmod man page for details.

CVS

The Concurrent Versions System (cvs) is a version control system (typically for source code); it helps manage versions of files and entire software projects.

A typical model for working alone on a project is:

• Make a directory for the project (this is the primary place where this project is stored)
• Create and edit files (compile and test) until you're done

But with cvs, a more typical use is:

• Check out a project to get a working copy
• Edit files in this copy of the project (compile and test)
• Update the project to add in changes anyone else made
• Make sure the project is ok (compile and test again!)
• Commit the project, so everyone else sees your changes
• When done, remove this copy of the project

• Introduction to CVS
• Comprehensive CVS Documentation

A CVS repository is already set up in /farm/village. Don't worry about knowing all of the features of this program; just start with the basics. In particular, be sure to look at how to start a project (section 3 of the comprehensive docs) once you read about the basics.

Please only access the CVS repository using the cvs command (either directly on the research machines, or remotely.) Do NOT use eclipse for CVS; there have been problems in the past that aren't worth getting into.

Extra stuff

• On each Sun workstation, a large amount of local disk space (aside from /tmp) is available in /hostname/local.
  Note that this space is NOT backed up!
• If your machine seems extra busy, someone else might be running something on it. Use the top command to list processes that are using the most cycles.