Getting Started with Accounts, E-Mail, Editing, and UNIX in the CS Department

This is for non-first-year or transfer persons who are new to the RIT Computer Science Department systems.

Accounts

Before doing much of anything, you need an account. See the CS department system administrators or your professor to get your account information. You also need to sign a

Email and Editing

After getting a CS department computer account, you need to:

1. change your password;
2. set up your email; and
3. learn/choose your editor.

You can teach yourself about passwords and email by following the CS1 course's lab 1 . While you should not 'do' this lab, it has information and instruction that you can use to learn how to set a good password, learn some UNIX, and configure your CS department email. Remember: your CS email is an account different from your institute email. Your lab grades should arrive in this account's mail one week after lab. You must check this email in addition to any other email accounts that you may possess.

If you choose to use emacs, that lab also teaches the emacs editor. Note that some of these are in-terminal (suitable for remote connection use), while others are windowed (which require more system setup for use within remote connections). Other editor choices include:

• vi (a visual editor and text browser)
• gedit (a windowed editor with menus and toolbars)
• nano (an emacs-like, in-terminal editor)
• pico (another emacs-like, in-terminal editor)

Learning UNIX and the CS Systems Infrastructure

Resources here begin with books, then PDF, and then reference sheets. Learning UNIX, like learning other computing environments, takes time. Unlike Windows, UNIX has a deep tradition of command line computing. To some, this may seem outdated, but it remains a very effective computing approach.

1. Harley Hahn's UNIX Book
2. CS Department UNIX Beginner's Guide
3. UNIX Reference Card
4. CS Department Facilities Overview
5. Prof. Tymann's Software links page
6. Prof. Bischof's Software links page

Getting Connected: Remote Access and File Transfers

Hosts At Your Service

Students can use the ICL systems as remote login hosts. These machines provide Linux operating systems.

Ubuntu Linux hosts follow a rock band naming convention in ICL2. Some example remote hosts for student access are:

1. hendrix.cs.rit.edu
2. hollies.cs.rit.edu
3. kinks.cs.rit.edu

Linux hosts follow a USA states naming convention in ICL3. Some example remote Linux hosts for student access are:

1. nebraska.cs.rit.edu
2. ohio.cs.rit.edu
3. vermont.cs.rit.edu

The 'beefy server' host for student remote access is:

1. glados.cs.rit.edu

As you get acclimated, you will want to look at some of these:

• ssh (secure shell provides remote terminal service)
• putty (provides remote terminal service). For Windows, download the PuTTY application found at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ to support remote terminal sessions with the CS servers.
• cygwin (provides UNIX-like environment on WIntel PC systems)
• sftp (provides secure file transfer protocol service)
• http://winscp.net/ (Windows secure file copy (upload/download))

First compiled by Ben K Steele, RIT, 2008. Updated: $Date: 2011-09-01 18:31:54 $

$Id: IntroCSDept.html,v 1.4 2011-09-01 18:31:54 bks Exp $