January 1999 - Winter 1999 System Update Information

• CSG FAQ - We've added lots of new entries to the list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Please check it out and let us know if you have any suggestions for additions or find any errors. Thanks!

• StarOffice - We are happy to announce the availability of Star Office on the CS Suns. Star Office is a complete office suite that can import and export files to and from the file formats used by Microsoft Office. If you have used office suites from Corel or Microsoft, you will probably find Star Office to be similar to those packages. StarOffice is also available for Windows, Linux, and OS/2 so it is a cross-platform package that makes it more valuable for many CS users. Furthermore, current users of WinDD or the new NT Terminal Server may find that StarOffice will reduce their dependence on these servers. If you are a current SGI user, you can just run StarOffice remotely on a Sun and display it on your SGI. Please see the Star Office Setup Guide for information about how to get started.

• Printing Changes - There have been some major changes to the printing environment over the past several weeks. All printers have been moved from the old print spooling system hosted by sunos to a new system hosted by several Solaris servers. Here are the changes that are most likely to effect you:
  • All duplex-capable printers now print duplex (double-sided) by default. To print simplex (single-sided), print to psNsimplex. For example, to print to ps6 in simplex mode, you can do:

    lp -d ps6simplex filename

    or

    lpr -Pps6simplex filename

  • The lpkick command can still be used to restart stalled printers. However, the machine from which the lpkick needs to be run is no longer sunos. Now, if you run lpkick on any workstation, it will attempt to run it remotely on your behalf using ssh. The burrow users will be happy to note that you can now run lpkick to restart psburrow. For example, if ps6 is having trouble, you can run

    lpkick ps6

    to try and get it going. See the lpkick man page (man lpkick) for more information about techniques for restarting stalled printers.
  • You can now kill (using lprm or cancel) print jobs that you may have spooled from some other machine. For example, if you spooled a job from an NT machine, you can now lprm it from any Sun workstation. To remove a job from the queue, first issue the lpq or lpstat command to get the job number and then remove it from the queue with something like:

    lprm -Pps6 1234

  Please let us know if you have any problems with the new print system.

• Disk Quotas - We are preparing to double the standard disk quota for graduate students (from 40MB to 80MB). You can expect this increase to occur before the end of January. Use the "quota -v" command to check your current quota. You may also want to check out the Quota FAQ Entry for information about how to make the most of your allocated disk space.

• Remote Access - We now have new remote access hardware on-line that will support V.90/56K and ISDN. If you are a faculty or staff member and would like to start using this new hardware, please let us know. We will be migrating all users from the Netblazer to the new hardware over the next several weeks. Please see the ISDN Policy Statement for more information.

• Software - Several new software packages and upgrades of existing packages have been installed recently. These include the latest Java3D, Standard ML, Eli, Jasmin, and PVS. Please see the software database for a list of currently installed software and pointers to documentation.

• Hi-Resolution Projector - We now have a new 1024x768 portable LCD projector that can be used with any Sun, SGI, or PC in the building for presentations. Please see the Presentation Facilities listing for a complete list of available electronic classroom and presentation facilities.

• Networking - The complete rewiring of Lindley Hall is about 95% completed. We hope to have all system on the new wire and switches by the middle of February 1999. This new switched network is a major improvement in performance and security compared to the old shared ethernet segments in use previously. Instead of several dozen machines sharing a single 10 Mbit/s ethernet segment, each and every machine now has it's own dedicated 10 Mbit/s connection. In addition, we also have the capacity to provide 100 Mbit/s Fast Ethernet, 155Mbit/s OC3 ATM, and 622Mbit/s OC12 ATM connections. Since the network is now switched, the data on the network is inherently more secure since the network traffic to/from your workstation does not show up on the network interface of many other machines on the network.

• Wireless Network - Lindley Hall is now completely covered by a wireless network. If you have a notebook computer and you want to get "connected" to this network, please let us know.

• Window NT Terminal Server - The new NT Terminal Server hardware is up and running Citrix MetaFrame and is undergoing testing by CSG staff. With this server, you will have access to a whole suite of Windows applications from your Unix or Mac workstation. This server will be available to all CS faculty, staff, and graduate students. We hope to deploy this server for general use in February 1999.

• C335/Multimedia lab - We are in the process of constructing a new lab of PCs in LH035 that will support the new multimedia class during the second half of the Spring 1999 semester. This lab will also be used to support C335 during the Fall 1999 semester and will replace the current custom 68030 machines.

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