UC Davis Computer Science at Home This document will provide you with a variety of ways to access the Computer Science newsgroups, communicate with the Computer Science Instructional Facility (CSIF), and create a Unix environment at home. Accessing the Computer Science Newsgroups To read and write to the newsgroups you need to configure a newsreader. This document will demonstrate how to configure two popular newsreaders: Outlook Express and Thunderbird.To configure Outlook Express, start it, and then go to Tools->Accounts. Select the News tab, and click the Add->News. Type in your name, e-mail address, and then news.ucdavis.edu for the News server. After you are finished, close the News tab, and click the Yes button when Outlook Express asks if you would like to download newsgroups. Once it is finished downloading the newsgroup list, type in the name of your newsgroup in the box at the top of the Newsgroup Subscriptions Dialog Window. To subscribe, just double click the newsgroup(s) when they appear, and then close the window. To read a newsgroup, just double click it on the list on the left. If you want Outlook Express to startup with this list instead of as an e-mail reader, you should go to the Tools->Options->General tab, and uncheck “When starting, go directly to my Inbox folder.”To configure Thunderbird, start it, and then go to Tools->Account Settings, and click Add Account. Select the “Newsgroup account”, then click Next, then enter your name and e-mail address, then click Next, and enter news.ucdavis.edu for the newsgroups server. Once you have closed the Account Settings window, news.ucdavis.edu should appear in the Folders list. Select news.ucdavis.edu in the list, and then click “Manage newsgroup subscriptions.” Thunderbird should then automatically download the list of newsgroups. Once it is finished downloading the newsgroup list, type in the name of your newsgroup in the box at the top of the Subscribe Dialog Window. To subscribe, just double click the newsgroup(s) when they appear, and then close the window. To read a newsgroup, just double click it on the list on the left. If you live off campus, then you must do one more thing before you can post to the newsgroups. In your web browser, enter news.ucdavis.edu as the URL. When the page opens, click “Web-based News Reader”, this whould take you to a “UC Davis Restricted Document Request” page. I suggest you bookmark this page. Click on the continue link, and then enter your kerebos user name and password. This sets a cookie for the newsreaders to permit them to write to the news server.Remote Access to the CSIF You will need secure shell (ssh) and secure file transfer protocol (sftp) software to communicate with the CSIF. PuTTY is a free ssh program, and WinSCP3 is a free sftp program with a GUI. UC Davis students can get these programs in two ways. You can download them you’re your MyUCDavis accounts by selecting UCD Resources->Software->Internet Tools. You can also go to IT Express in Shields Library and pick up the free Internet Tools CD. Note that the CD also has Norton AntiVirus program as well as a lot of other great programs all for free!Once you have the programs you will create sessions using a CSIF computer name, e.g. pc13.cs.ucdavis.edu Unix at Home There are four ways of having a Unix experience at home: 1) installing cygwin in Windows; 2) install a copy of Linux in as a virtual machine on top of Windows (see
http://csifdocs.cs.ucdavis.edu/tiki-index.php?page=CSIF+Fedora+Virtual+Machine+Help); 3) running Linux from a Knoppix CD; and 4) installing Linux on one of your hard drives, and dual booting it with Windows. You will find http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/Linux/LinuxInstall.pdf quite helpful for the latter two methods.
Cygwin in Windows Cygwin is a free application that emulates a Unix shell while still running the Windows operating system. With cygwin, you can develop using gcc, gdb, g++ on your Windows computer without need of connecting to the CSIF. You download the cygwin shell as well as Windows ports of Unix software from cygwin.com. In a web browser, go to cygwin.com, and click “Install Cygwin now”. Once you start setup.exe, I suggest you accept all of the default selections until you reach the “Select Packages” screen. When selecting the options for cygwin you should at least install X11, openssh from the Net heading, and ddd, gcc, g++, and gdb from the Devel heading. Once cygwin is installed, you need only click on the cygwin icon to start a Unix like shell.
If you wish to program in a GUI environment you will need to use the X Server. First follow the directions at http://x.cygwin.com/docs/ug/setup-cygwin-x-installing.html to install the X server. Then follow the following steps:
1. Start cygwin
2. Type cd
3. Type cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
4. Edit .bashrc using vi by typing vi .bashrc
5. Add the following line at the end of .bashrc: PATH=$PATH:.:/usr/X11R6/bin
6. Save .bashrc, exit vi, and exit cygwin.
7. From now on, to develop at home: start cygwin and then Type startx
a. For more information visit http://x.cygwin.com/docs/ug/using.html
8. To develop using the CSIF computers remotely:
a.
start cygwin and then Type startx
b.
Type ssh -Y
-l username remote_hostname, e.g. ssh –Y –l
c. After entering your password, at the shell prompt, type xterm& this will open an X Window on your home machine that you will now type into!
Knoppix
Before proceeding you must create a copy of a Knoppix CD. You can download an image of the CD from by downloading its iso from http://www.knoppix.org . When burning the image, make sure you don’t just copy the image file.
Adjust the boot list of your BIOS
so that it boots from the CD (before the hard drive). To access the BIOS settings you will usually
need to hold down the
The computer will ask if you wish to run Knoppix, and you will just hit Enter. Once Knoppix starts, a web browser with an explanation of Knoppix appears.
To have Knoppix remember important settings permanently, you must store its settings somewhere on your computer. This can either be your hard disk, or a USB stick. Click the Penguin icon then choose “Configure/Create a persistent KNOPPIX disk image”. After clicking the Yes button, select the partition to use (hda is usually the C: drive in Windows, sda will usually be your USB stick.) After selecting your destination drive, you must decide whether you wish to encrypt your information. I chose not to encrypt. The size of the homedir is up to you. Assume that 100 MB is needed just for Knoppix. Anything larger is room for your own files. I chose 500 MB. After you select the size, Knoppix will set aside space, format, and copy data to the specified drive. After it is done, reboot your computer by right clicking on the Desktop, and selecting “Log Out”, and then “Restart.” Despite what the message says, do not remove Knoppix CD from the computer, and make sure it is in your computer as it restarts.
Now that you have a permanent location for your Knoppix configuration you can set up your network and printers. Click the Penguin icon and select “Network/Internet/Network card configuration.” Set the IP addresses based on those you copied from Windows. To set the printer, again click the Penguin icon, and then select “Configure/Configure Printer.” In the “Configure – KDE Control Module” select Add and then select the appropriate brand and model. If you have troubles with printer drivers, click the Penguin again and select Root Shell. In the shell, type
foomatic-cleanupdrivers (with no spaces.) Then try adding the printer again.
After setting up your printer and the network, save your Knoppix configuration by clicking the Penguin icon and selecting the “Configure/Save KNOPPIX configuration”. You may need to select a different destination directory than the default.
From now on, whenever you start your computer with the Knoppix CD in the drive you will have to type knoppix myconfig=scan at the prompt to load your own printer configuration.
For this
option you will to have a copy of a Linux distribution DVD or CDs. You can download the appropriate images from
http://distrowatch.com. You can read
Professor Matloff’s general guide at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/linux.html. I have a guide for installing Mandriva 2007
at http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~davis/40/Mandriva2007_install.htm If you think you would like some hands on
help, then you can go to an Installfest of the Linux User Group of