INDEX
NOTE: For the impatient, I've included links for
"immediate downloads" in the index. However, if you
haven't used the app before, I recommend that you also
follow the links to the appropriate sections of this page
to get some information (and further links) on
configuration, usage ... It may save you some time
and aggravation.
IMPORTANT
For those of you who use PCs, laptops, etc. that run
Windows, it is highly recommended that you download and
install PuTTY (or some other ssh client for Windows) and
Xming. The former will allow you to establish a ssh
connection to hyper from your Windows machine using an
application that looks much like the terminal app that we
use on the lab machines. You can then work within a
shell on hyper and run text/command-line versions of maple
and Matlab. With Xming you can do even more:
the software, in conjunction with the ssh client will
allow you to login to hyper and then run graphical
applications, such as kate, xmaple, desktop/GUI Matlab,
etc. that will appear on your personal machine.
WARNING! Depending on the speed of your network
connection, response time for applications such as xmaple
and Matlab may be so sluggish as to make working with it
infeasible, so you should be prepared to spend some time
in Hennings 205 (outside of the labs per se) as necessary.
Which text editor should you I
use if I'm working remotely
I recommend that you use gedit rather than kate
when working remotely. It appears that gedit's
performance is much superior to kate's in this
context, and for the purposes of the course, the two
editors are equivalent.
PuTTY
(ssh
client
for Windows)
If you don't have a ssh client installed on your Windows
machine(s), you can download and install the free package, PuTTY HERE. I recommend
that you click the "A Windows installer for everything
except PuTTYtel" link in the "latest release version (beta 0.63)"
section, save the file to disk, then double click on the
file icon to inititate the installation. As described
above, once installed, you will be able to use PuTTY to open
terminal windows to remote machines such as hyper. This in
turn will allow you to do basic command-line work on hyper,
and other machines that accept ssh connections, from within
Windows.
Note that the terminal sessions that you initiate to hyper
via ssh will only provide you with the facility to run
commands/programs that use the terminal window itself for
all input and output. This includes commands
such as cd, pwd, ls, grep, as well as command-line maple and
command-line Matlab. If you wish to use applications
which "draw on the screen", such as kate, remotely---i.e.
running on hyper, but displaying on your personal Windows
machine---you can install the Xming package, per the
following section. Note that I cannot guarantee that
the installation of Xming on any given system will be
successful, but it you are using a laptop, I can try to
assist you at the end of a lab session or, preferably,
during my office hours (listed on the main course page).
When you set up your PuTTY connection to hyper be sure that
you enable X11 forwarding. See HERE
for instructions.
XMing: (X11 server for Windows)
Installation of this free software on your PC/laptop running
Windows will allow you to run an X server on your system
(without installing Linux). In particular, your will
then be able to ssh into hyper.phas.ubc.ca and start up
graphical applications such as kedit, xmaple etc., and the
applications will appear on your Windows screen.
Performance won't be as good as it would be if you had Linux
installed and were running applications locally, but
provided that your network connection is sufficiently fast,
it should suffice for you to do at least some of your
homework and term project work outside of the computer lab.
The software can be downloaded from HERE, and there is
additional documentation about installing and using it HERE.
IMPORTANT!
Before you install XMing, you should install the PuTTY
ssh-client (see above), which you will use to establish
connections between your Windows machine and hyper.
During the process of installing Xming you will be presented
with a Select Components dialog: choose the Normal
PuTYY Link SSH client option.
Once you have installed Xming, and assuming you have placed
an Xming icon on your desktop, you start the server simply
by clicking on the icon (alternately, you can start Xming
from the All Programs menu). Once the server starts,
you won't see any specific windows etc. associated with
Xming, but an "X" icon should appear on the panel,
indicating that it is running. Right clicking on the
icon will give you a pull-down menu that includes an option
to exit the server.
Also, when using PuTTY in conjunction with Xming, you should
ensure that any connections that you establish to hyper, or
other machines on which you wish to run graphical
applications, have X forwarding enabled; otherwise those
applications (like kate or gnuplot) will not be able to
display on your Windows system. Note that PuTTY has a
facility for saving and loading sessions (with the
configuration settings saved as well), that you should learn
how to use.
Again, see
HERE for information on how to configure PuTTY
for X forwarding.
Important note for Mac users wanting
to run remote X11 applications (kate, gedit ...)
Mac OS is a Unix-based system and comes with a terminal
program that you should be able to locate in Applications
-> Utilities (see e.g. HERE),
and
from which you should be able to initiate connections to
remote machines via ssh. Providing that you invoke ssh with
X forwarding enabled (using the -X or -Y options; see
below), you should then be able to run graphically based
applications, such as gedit, on the remote machine (e.g.
hyper).
IMPORTANT! On newer
versions of Mac OS-X, including 10.8 and 10.9 (Mountain Lion
/ Mavericks), you may need to download and install some
additional software (XQuarz),
and then configure your system so that X forwarding will
work. See HERE
for instructions: once you have installed XQuarz, the
specific command that you will need to execute to give hyper
access to your display ("Add your remove [sic] server to
host:") is
% sudo xhost + hyper.phas.ubc.ca
Irrespective of which version of Mac OS-X you are running,
connect to hyper
% ssh -X hyper.phas.ubc.ca -l your-login-on-hyper
and if that doesn't appear to work (e.g. the kate window
does not display when you start the editor on hyper), try
using the -Y option instead of -X, i.e.
% ssh -Y hyper.phas.ubc.ca -l your-login-on-hyper
Installing command-line-
and X11-based software on Max OS
There are several systems (essentially package managers)
available that will allow you to install much of the open
source software available for Linux on Mac OSX
See HERE
for a list of some of the current
possibilties. Of those listed, I would recommend
- MacPorts
- fink
likely in than order. I have personal experience with fink,
and it works reasonably well. MacPorts appears to be more
actively supported/developed and is probably more user
friendly than fink.
FileZilla
FileZilla is an application based on
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) that will allow
you to easily transfer files to and from your personal
machine(s) and any machine, which includes hyper, that
will allow an FTP connection. You can also accomplish
these tasks using scp
(pscp in PuTTY) but I think most of you will find
FileZilla more convenient.
The software is available for Windows (all flavours), Mac
OSX and Linux and the main download site is HERE.
Caution: Beware that if you do download
from the main site, you will probably be offered
additional software to install. I recommend that you
do not install any of it, at least not at that
time that you install FileZilla. It is therefore
perhaps best to go directly to the download per se using
one of the following links:
Note: For those of you using Linux, note that you
should be able to use your package installer to install
FileZilla; in fact it might even be installed
already. Use
% which filezilla
to see whether it is.
Once you have installed the application, open it and
enter the following in the type-in fields at the top
- Host: sftp://hyper.phas.ubc.ca
- Username: your-login-name
- Password: your-password (the one you use to
access the lab machines)
- Important: Be sure to use sftp://
before hyper.phas.ubc.ca in the Host field. If you
simply use hyper.phas.ubc.ca, the application will try
to connect using an unencrypted FTP connection, and
hyper will refuse that.
Once you've connected, you'll see a view of the remote
directory structure in the right pane of the app.
Here's a snapshot
of a session open on my PC (don't tell the world that I
actually run Windows from time-to-time!)
To transfer files:
- Browse to the appropriate local folder on your
personal machine (left pane, top part browses
directories only, bottom part browses directories and
displays regular files)
- Browse to the appropriate remote folder on
hyper (right pane, same comments re top/bottom parts)
- Use drag-and-drop or double left-mouse clicks on the
files that you want to transfer (either way)
It will probably be less confusing for you to always
browse from the bottom subpanes. Also note that the
full path of the directories being viewed are shown in the
Local site: and Remote site: widgets, and
that you can type pathnames into those widgets rather than
using the icon-based browsing facility.
Caution: Be particularly careful to browse to
the correct destination directory on hyper. For
example, if you want to copy an image file to
/phys210/$LOGNAME/public_html, start from /, then select
phys210, then your login-named folder, then
public_html. It will be good practice (in two senses
of the word) to have a shell window open to hyper (using
PuTTY e.g.) while you do the transfers so that you can
verify that the files are ending up where you want them
to.
Linux
Should you wish, you can install a version of Linux on your
laptop and/or home machine, and, if necessary, we can try to
help you with the process. Assuming that you are a
Linux-newbie, Ubuntu
is arguably the best choice for you: the default desktop
will be different from that we will be using in the lab, but
that shouldn't pose too much difficultly.
If your machine runs Windows Vista or 7:
If you want to install Linux on a PC/laptop that is running
Windows Vista or 7, then it is usually a relatively easy
process to perform the installation so that your computer is
"dual-boot", i.e. so that, after the Linux install, you can
boot into either Linux or your previous Windows installation
as you wish.
In the case of Ubuntu, an even more straightforward and less
risky approach is to use Wubi, which
will install Ubuntu more or less as a regular software
package under Windows. See HERE for
instructions.
If your machine runs Windows 8:
Here, the situation is a little more challenging, especially
if you're not comfortable with topics such as upgrading
firmware on your computer, adjusting BIOS settings,
configuring software and especially if you don't want to
face the possibility of having to reinstall Windows and
recover all of your personal files (which you will certainly
want to back up before you make any : unless you're sure you
know what you're doing, it's probably safest to talk to us
about the
If you do attempt to install Linux in conjunction with
Windows, (even if you are using the wubi approach), it is strongly
recommended that you perform a backup before the
install since, unfortunately, there's a reason Murphy's Law is
called a "law"! Moreover, we cannot assume
responsibility for any files, data, etc. that you lose as a
result of an installation attempt.
Maple
Maple is a commercial product, so if you wish to install it
on a personal machine, you will have to purchase it (about
$100). A link to the on-line store is HERE.
However,
you certainly do not have to have your own copy to do the
Maple work in this course.
IMPORTANT! Once more, even if you have Xming
installed on a Windows box (see below), or are using a Mac,
do not expect to be able to effectively use xmaple remotely
(i.e running on hyper, but displaying on your personal
machine). Xmaple simply requires too much information
to be transmitted to the display to be handled by most
people's home network setups. Thus, expect that you
will need to do your xmaple work in the computer lab.
Matlab
Matlab is also commercial software so you will need to
purchase it should you want a personal copy installed
on your own machine. Specially priced student
versions are available from this MathWorks
web site: Note that the Matlab Student
(unbundled) version, which at $50 US is about half the price
of the standard student offering, should suffice for the
purposes of the course.
Octave
Octave is an open-source Matlab clone available for Linux
and, provided that you have one of the package management
systems mentioned above, Mac OSX.
Almost all of the Matlab that we study and use in the course
will work on octave as well.
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