Unix Frequently Asked Questions

Helpful Documents

• Sweet Hall Consulting Page
• Sourcing the tools (README_CAD)

Questions

Q: Where are the workstations?

A: There are many workstations spread all over campus. There is a large cluster located on the 2nd floor of Sweet Hall. Additionally there is a smaller cluster located on the 1st floor of Terman. Terman is trypically less crowded than Sweet, but Sweet never closes. Terman closes most weekdays at midnight.

Q: I want to run a tool that works only on the sparcs, but there are no sparc stations free. There are plenty of DEC stations free. What do I do?

A: You can run any of the tools from a remote login session. Here's what you do:

1. Decide which sparc station you want to use. Take a look at sweetload.
2. On your station type "xhost +REMOTE_ELAINE" replacing REMOTE_ELAINE with the remote station you want to login to (e.g. xhost +elaine34).
3. Telnet and login to the sparc station that you want to use.
4. On the sparc login set the display environment to the station you are at. For example, if your are at amy2 type "setenv DISPLAY amy2:0".
5. Run the tool.

You can also use "xhost +", which allows any host to draw to your screen. Note that some pranksters will occaisionally dump random junk to your screen if you use "xhost +".

Q: I try to use some of the tools and get a "Command not found" error.

A: Look at README_CAD . Follow the instructions there.

You can also locate the tool itself and try running it with the full path name. Most CAD tools are located at /afs/ir.stanford.edu/class/ee/bin.

If you try to access some UNIX tool and cannot do so, you may be missing something else in your path. Take a look at /usr/skel/.cshrc for a pretty complete path.

Q: I get the "Cannot access /afs/ir.stanford.edu/class/ee271/setup" message. What should I do to run the tools?"

A: You will need remote login to one of the machines in sweet hall or Terman.

Q: I want to run the tools from my home computer. Can I do it?

A: Probably. You need either a SLIP/PPP connection or some sort of network connection to the university (like the Ethernet connection in your dorm room).

SLIP software for Macs and PC is available by authorized ftp (use your normal login) from:

site-license.stanford.edu/slip/

http://www.stanford.edu/~wkn/Linux/slip/slip.html

Next you need some sort of X Windows emulator for your home computer. For the Mac there is MacX, eXodus, and whatever comes with MachTen. MacX is available from site-licensed.stanford.edu as unsupported software. For the PC running DOS/Windows there are a bunch of X Windows emulators (I am not too familiar with them, so I only mention DesqViewX). For the PC running linux, you should install XFree86 3.x. This is a chore in and of itself, so unless you already have it running or you are really interested in doing it, putting Linux on your PC may be more of a task than you wish to tackle.

All you need to do when you have all of those things is:

1. Establish your SLIP connection.
2. Start up your X Windows emulator (if it is not already running).
3. Login to one of the stanford machines (probably an elaine).
4. Set the display environment to the IP address of your home computer (you should have been assigned a dynamic IP address when you started your SLIP connection).
5. Start up whatever tool you want to use.

If your are running Linux on your PC or MachTen on your mac you can probably compile some of the tools (magic and irsim) on your machine.