SC740 Presentation Review

Week One

By: Shahram Rahimi

Topic: Using Unix in the Scientific Computing Enviroment

By: Dr. Joseph Kolibal
Department of Mathematics

August 28th, 1998

In this presentation Dr Kolibal gave us some information on the integrated Unix computing
environment at USM which can be used in Scientific Computing research. He started with
giving some information about the Unix based computers available in USM.

• PAX: Pentium 133Mhz, 96 MB RAM, 6.44 GB HD, located at Tec 114
• EOS: Ded Alpha, 533Mhz , .5 GB HD, 13.5 GB Scasi Drive, and 4MB Cache
• IRIS: Pentium 300Mhz, 64 MB, located at SH205
• ORCA: Computer Science, located at Tec building
• DERCH: Office of Technology Resources, located at FCH

To open an account in PAX and EOS we need to see him (because of security considerations
we would not be able to change our password in PAX or EOS).

GCC, G++, G77, EGCS are some of the available compilers in PAX, and he is going to install
those compilers in EOC too. Moreover, Mathematica is available in PAX and EOS. To make
it easier to access to the different utilities and software, X-windows has been activated in EOS
and PAX .

Furthermore, Tec Plot, TeX, LaTeX, and AMSTeX (including image manipulation software)
are available in these machines, which are useful word processors for producing a thesis.

He also explained us how to copy a file from any of these Unix based computers into
the host computer using SCP or logging in with SSH.

In my opinion, this presentation was not structured and it was diffecult for audience to keep
track of the flow of the materials, specially for new students. There was no demonstration or
enough use of blackboard to help better understanding of the presented materials.