Green Bank Public Computing Pages
10/24/07 IDL 6.4
The default IDL version is now IDL 6.4. The previous version 6.3 is still available as idl_6.3 and idlde_6.3
09/12/07 Despina and Thalassa upgraded to new dual core workstations
They now have both 2.6 Ghz dual core CPU, 2 GB of RAM. Room JA-105
07/18/07 Mathematica 6.0 now available
The Linux Mathematica installation has been upgraded from version 5.2 to 6.0.
03/05/07 SDLT 600 tape drive now available
There is now a SDLT 600 tape drive available as /dev/st2 on euler. One tape of this format holds 300GB uncompressed.
11/28/06 AIPS++ local install
AIPS++ will now be an rpm based install on our Linux machines. /usr/bin/aips++. No need to source the aipsinit.sh script anymore. The existing installs
in /home/aips++ remain unchanged for now.
11/09/06 Firefox 2 available
Firefox 2 is now available on Linux. Just type firefox2 to start it up.
Firefox 1.5 is still the default started with firefox
07/28/06 OpenOffice 2.0 available
OpenOffice 2.0.3 has been installed on our Linux machines. The new version can
be started by typing soffice. The old version is still available as
ooffice.
07/28/06 Firefox and Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 update
New security and bugfix release installed for Linux
07/14/06 Scratch disk upgrade
The disk drives containing /home/scratch have been upgraded with new drives. /home/scratch now has more space and has been converted to an XFS filesystem.
06/26/06 Web Server Move
The GB web services (www.gb.nrao.edu, ftp.gb.nrao.edu and wiki.gb.nrao.edu) on gollum will be moved to a new server today at noon. Expect a downtown of about 15 minutes.
06/05/06 Firefox and Thunderbird 1.5.0.4
Security and bugfix update installed for Linux
06/01/06 Spamassassin rule update
A number of the rulesets for spamassassin have been updated and a new one added. This should help to slow down the amount of spam creeping through our filters.
05/05/06 Firefox 1.5.0.3
Security and bugfix update installed for Linux
05/05/06 Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 Update
Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 is available in /opt/local. Note that RHEL4 ships with an older version,
so you have to start this new version with /opt/local/bin/thunderbird.
03/21/06 memory upgrade on prospero and leo
Both prospero and leo are now running with 2 GB of RAM.
02/13/06 ftools (fv) updated from an ancient build to version 6.0.4
Old init scripts setting up ftools should continue to work through updated wrapper scripts
02/02/06 /opt/local install of firefox updated to version 1.5.0.1
The new release comes with a lot of bug/security fixes. Just typing "firefox" on any Linux machine should start it up.
12/13/05 /home/scratch Available Via Samba
The /home/scratch disc is now available via samba at
\\samba-gb\scratch\your_username
12/06/05 Stellarium and Celestia
This two 3D astronomy rendering packages have been installed for Linux. "stellarium" is a planetarium simulator and "celestia" allows you to fly through space in realtime.
11/30/05 Mathematica 5.2
Mathematica has been upgraded to version 5.2 for both Linux and Solaris.
11/29/05 IDL 6.2
The default IDL version is now IDL 6.2. The previous version 6.1 is still available as idl_6.1 and idlde_6.1
10/25/05 Nedit
Editor nedit upgraded to version 5.5 both on Linux and Solaris
09/23/05 Mozilla 1.7.12 and Firefox 1.0.7 upgrade
Mozilla and Firefox has been upgraded to the latest versions on Linux for security reasons
07/26/05 Mozilla 1.7.10 upgrade
Mozilla has been upgraded to version 1.7.10 on Linux and Solaris because of multiple security problems with older versions
07/20/05 Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0.6 upgrade
Firefox and Thunderbird have been upgraded to version 1.0.6 because of stability problems with the 1.0.5 release
07/14/05 Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0.5 upgrade
Firefox and Thunderbird have been upgraded to version 1.0.5 because of multiple security problems with the older
version. Use
/usr/local/bin/firefox and /usr/local/bin/thunderbird to start it.
05/10/05 Linux CD writer move
The public linux CD writer has been moved from volans to bratac in the same room. The instructions here have been have been updated accordingly.04/25/05 Mozilla 1.7.7 upgrade
Mozilla has been upgraded to version 1.7.7 on Linux and Solaris systems because of more security problems with the old version.
04/19/05 Firefox 1.0.3 upgrade
Firefox 1.0.3 has been installed on Linux and fixes an important security hole. Use
/usr/local/bin/firefox to start it.
03/25/05 Mozilla 1.7.6 upgrade
Mozilla has been upgraded to version 1.7.6 on Linux and Solaris systems.
03/15/05 Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0 for Linux available
The new Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0 has been installed for Linux and is available as "acroread7". The new name is necessary because the original acroread program is still required for IDL help.
03/09/05 Mozilla 1.7.5 upgrade
Mozilla has been upgraded to version 1.7.5 on Linux and Solaris systems.
01/10/04 Mathematica 5.1 upgrade
Mathematica has been upgraded from the 5.0.1 release to 5.1 on both Linux and Solaris
11/11/04 Proxy wierdness
A few problems associated with the proxy have cropped up in the last day or two. We believe these have been fixed now. If you continue to experience difficulty please contact the helpdesk.
11/11/04 New number crunchers
A couple of new number crunchers and a new booking system have been deployed.If you use any of the number crunchers you should read this page
11/08/04 Old users area
The old users area that crashed last week is now mounted as /mnt/oldusers on prospero. If you are missing any files you may find them here but there is no guarantee that the files are not corrupted. In addition the /home/mirror/users area is still in place but has not been updated since last Wednesday.
11/05/04 Prospero retired as a NFS server
Because of the failure of /users and other filesystems on prospero, these filesystems are now served from the NetApp ( a machine bought for this specific purpose and deployed for testing a couple of months ago ). The new netapp implements a strict user quota scheme. The default quota is 2 GB per user. Please report any problems you find to helpdesk@gb.nrao.edu.
10/19/04 IDL upgraded to version 6.1
IDL version 6.1 is now installed on Solaris and Linux systems. If for some
reason the new version does not work for you, the old version 6.0 is still available
(type idl_6.0 or idlde_6.0).
09/08/04 Proxy configuration for 172 net
In order to access the proxy from 172 network machines use the following automatic proxy configuration URL:
and not the URL listed in the GOLD BOOK. The GOLD BOOK will be updated shortly.
08/20/04 Software updates
The package jobserve has been updated from version 1.7.0 to 1.7.2 and the lookup command has been replaced with the new LDAP based version both on Linux and Solaris machines
07/29/04 DS9 Astronomical Data Visualization Application installed
The ds9 package has been installed both on Linux and Solaris. It can be started by the "ds9" command.
Have a look at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord/ds9/ for
more information about this package.
05/17/04 Flat Panels
Victor, naiad and titania have had their CRTs replaced with LCD panels. If you encounter any difficulties please send a message to the helpdesk
04/29/04 Prospero Troubles
As you are no doubt aware we have been having some problems recently with stability on prospero, our main fileserver. Recent kernels have not been tested thoroughly on multiprocessor, multi-gigabyte machines prior to release. Possibly due to lack of access to such machines but the result is a serious problem in the way that memory is handled. In simple terms memory runs out over time, how long is somewhat dependant on filesystem use. Once a certain point is reached the kernel spends all its time dealing with memory housekeeping tasks and stops responding.
Wolfgang has tried assorted patches and one of these was succesful in fixing the problem. However this patch is incompatible with the current kernels which we must use for security reasons and this has lead to the current stability problems. We are doing our best to fix this and remedial plans are in place to use another machine for our main fileserver should this prove necessary.
Unfortunately this will mean reboots at possibly short notice.
Please bear with us while we work through these problems.
04/06/04 Changes on the 172 net
In order to increase the reliability of machines on the 172 network we will be removing the nfs mounts from prospero and gollum that give direct access to email (/home/mail) and the web tree (/home/nraoweb).
This change will be effected on Thursday 8th April. After this date it will not be possible to access either of these filesystems. The effect of this will be that some email clients that access the mail directories directly will simply tell you you have no email and you will not be able to edit web pages directly.
Most mail clients can be configured to access your mail via POP or IMAP. Details of how to do this are available in THE GOLD BOOK
To edit web pages you will need to login to a machine on the general computing network.
Sendmail will continue to work from the 172 network as it does now.
03/11/04 Perl 5.8.3 as well as PDL and Perl PGPLOT interface installed
The following packages have been upgraded/installed in /opt/local :
cfitsio-2.490 pgplot-5.2.2 Perl 5.8.3 with this additional modules: ExtUtils-F77-1.14 Astro-Fits-CFITSIO-1.01 Astro-Fits-Header-2.8.1 PGPLOT-2.18 PDL-2.4.1
PDL (``Perl Data Language'') gives standard Perl the ability to compactly store and speedily manipulate the large N-dimensional data arrays which are the bread and butter of scientific computing.
PDL turns perl in to a free, array-oriented, numerical language similar to such commerical packages as IDL and MatLab. One can write simple perl expressions to manipulate entire numerical arrays all at once. For example, using PDL the perl variable $a can hold a 1024x1024 floating point image, it only takes 4MB of memory to store it and expressions like $a=sqrt($a)+2 manipulate the whole image in a few seconds.
A simple interactive shell (perldl) is provided for use from the command line and a module (PDL) for use in perl scripts.
The PDL distribution for Perl is free Software and provides extensive numerical and semi-numerical functionality with support for two- and three-dimensional visualization as well as a variety of I/O formats. The goal is to allow PDL to interact with a variety of external numerical packages, graphics and visualisation systems. Easy interfacing to such systems is one of the core design features of PDL.
With the additional packages installed it is easy and convenient to (i) download fits data into PDL or Fortran/C, (ii) use great features of pgplot graphical library in a standard perl script or PDL as well as Fortran/C.
You have to use /usr/local/bin/perl as your perl interpreter in order to use the additional features
If you have any questions, please ask Yuri Kovalev or the helpdesk
03/10/04 Computing Outage
When: Thursday 12th Mar 04 7:30 to 10:30
What: Sitewide Power outage.
All computing services will be shutdown from 07:30 Thursday until power is restored. Please ensure you are logged out of all machines before then.
02/12/04 Computing Outage
When: Friday 13th Feb 04 12:00 to 13:00
What: Complete Unix service outage.
Why: Prospero is having difficulty talking to its LTO tape library.
The scsi controller for the LTO tape library is causing regular crashes. At lunchtime on Friday we plan to move the LTO to etamin where we can investigate and fix the problem with less impact on the system. At the same time we will move the aips++ tree to prospero.
You are strongly advised to log out of all unix systems during the outage. As the aips++ tree will be moved you should also stop any jobs that rely on aips++
Services Affected: All
All unix based services. This includes email, and samba shares.
If you have any questions please contact the helpdesk
02/05/04 Starlink software - summer 2003 release now available.
The starlink software collection, summer 2003 release for RH9 is now available under /home/apps/starlink-summer2003 The spring 2002 release will be deleted soon. Let us know if you have need of the older version.
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