CSC-LAB: lectures and workshops



Computer Science Teaching Lab, Ungar Building, Third Floor

Important First Day Information

Instructors: NEW INFORMATION

Several instructors rewired the podium for the specific configuration the wanted. I have understood those requirements and installed new equipment to make that simpler, and to not disadvantage others who were left to return the wiring to the previous configuration.

  • Leave the LCD on Laptop.
  • Select on the podium with the little device pictured.
    • Left Light On: The left input, to a laptop adapter, will be displayed on the monitor and screens.
    • Right Light On: The right input, to the Dell workstation computer, will be displayed on the monitor and screens.
  • Previously, a box inside the podium was involved. Now it is set to HDMI 1, and should not be changed.

If you are in a class with a class account, you can log into any machine in the lab.

Help is available,

⚙ CSC–115
Please refer to your instructor.
⚙ CSC–120
The instructor will help you install IntelliJ Idea on your own laptop.
⚙ CSC–220
The Eclipse program is installed.
  • If an icon is not present in your start menu, from the terminal run,
      /opt/lab/eclipse/desktop-icon-install.sh
  • Or, from the terminal run,
      /opt/lab/eclipse/java-2021-06/eclipse/eclipse
⚙ CSC–210
The Phaser Program, Idle Python run environment, and R shell are installed
⚙ CSC–322
Find the terminal either by search or among the start panel icons.

Computer Lab Information

The Computer Science Lecture and Learning lab is located within the Computer Science Department, on the third floor of the Ungar Building. It is used for an interactive teaching experience, where labs and workshops work together to provide an effective and exciting learning experience.

See also the Discovery Lab

Bromeliad machine names
____________________________________
aechmea ananas barfussia
bromelia catopsis connellia
dyckia edmundoa greigia
guzmania hechtia lymania
navia ochagavia pepinia
pitcairnia portea puya
quesnelia racinaea fosterella
cipuropsis encholirium werauhia
ronnbergia brewcaria fernseea
sequencia tillandsia ursulaea
vriesea wallisia zizkaea
This year the lab's 31 computers were refreshed with Dell 3640's, with NVIDIA RTX 3070 GPU's for graphics and deep learning, and supported by 1TB of NVMe and 64G of RAM. They run Ubuntu 20.04.

The machines are networked to share a file-system and about 6TB of storage. The server is johnston.cs.miami.edu, and each client machine is named for a bromeliad genus. The entire lab is referred do as bromeliad.

The computers can be used as a desktop, when the student is in the lab, or remotely using ssh. However the ssh requires arrangements, as the machines are protected in their access to the internet.

Class Account: If the instructor of the class wishes the students to use the machines in the lab, class accounts will be created. These accounts require the student provide,

Usually the accounts are set up for the student from the classroll. The instructor will give more information on the login name and password, and use of the account.

Other Lab Uses: Some classes will meet in this room, but the student shall bring in their own laptop, and work on that. The instructor of the course chooses the computer use for the course.

Policy: Students must follow the computer use policies of the University of Miami as well as these policies,

  1. The student has agreed to the content and uses policies of the University.
  2. The student must supply their caneID email and be responsive to emails sent to this address.
  3. The student is aware that contents in a class account can be viewed by professors, TA's, and software administrators in the department.
  4. The student is aware that a strong password is a requirement. A password will be assigned and it may be that the student cannot change the password.
  5. The student is aware that they must not share the password or the account.
  6. The student is aware that the class account is for classwork, and will be archived or deleted at the end of the semester.
  7. The student is aware that the contents of class accounts are periodically backed up, but this does not guarantee that all data can be recovered in case of a deletion or a system failure.

Discovery Lab

The department has a second computer lab (pictured) for the gathering of students in groups, meeting with TA's.

This lab is adjacent to the teaching lab, on the third floor of the Ungar Building and all the University community is invited, especially majors and minors in the various Computer Science and Data Science programs across the University.

Getting Unix and SSH

The department makes entensive use of the unix operating system and terminal based access to computing devices using ssh. We suggest that all majors arrange to have access to a unix command line and a standard unix ssh install.

While not all unix tools are standard on OSX, ssh is. However ssh is not standard on Windows, and many free implementations are not correct. For either more extensive unix tools on OSX or the usual set of unix tools on Windows, here are the options.

There are various options for becoming multi-platform:

XCode

Apple's development suit is called XCode. It contains the standard unix tools, including make and subversion. It is available for free on the AppStore.

WSL: Windows Subsystem for Linux

Windows can run linux side-by-side with the windows OS using WSL. Also see: Get Started

  • Search Windows Features in the serach box, and chose Turn Windows Features On Or Off. Scroll down to check-box “Windows Subsystem for Linux” and enable.
  • or Run PowerShell as Administrator and chant the magic formula 
    Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
  • After reboot install the Ubuntu 20.04 distro using the Microsoft Store.

Once done, features such as ssh, make, svn and git are available using apt-get. 

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install build-essential ssh subversion git
⚙ Using WSL, start an Ubuntu shell from your start menu. To access your Windows files in that shell, use the path, 
cd /mnt/c
assuming a C: drive. Adjust if necessary.

⚙ Conversely, from a Windows PowerShell access your unix files with, 

cd \\wsl$\ubuntu-20.04
Adjust if necessary.

Cygwin

For Windows users another option is the Cygwin product. Like WSL it runs a side-by-side unix system on windows.

  • Install Cygwin, www.cygwin.com.
  • From the cygwin home page select setup-x86_64.exe. Take any download server, and it will show a long list of "pending downloads". Just go ahead and install all this.
  • When done, repeat the visit to cygwin.com and the click on the setup exe, and this time choose to install git and ssh. There is a selection window. Change the pulldown on the upper left for View to Not Installed. Search for git, and it has "skip" in the new column. Use the pull-down on the right to change that to a version to install.
  • Do the same for ssh (called openssh). The proceed to Next/Next and it installs.

Virtual Box

For either Windows or OS-X users, a possibility is to have your machine host and virtual image of a unix machine, under emulation.

  • Install Virtual Box
  • Download a Ubuntu ISO (20.4 64-bit desktop, for instance)
  • Install Ubuntu on a virtual machine, from the ISO.
  • Update and install additional packages. Log into the image, get a terminal window and,
    • sudo apt-get update
    • sudo apt-get upgrade
    • sudo apt-get install build-essential
    • sudo apt-get install subversion
    • sudo apt-get install git

Multipass

A new alternative is Multipass by Canonical. This is similar to WSL but runs on all platforms.

People to Seek

Chairman of the Department
Prof. Milenkovic
vjm@cs.miami.edu
Director of Hacking and Architecture
Prof Rosenberg
burt@cs.miami.edu
Lab Administrator and Exalted Guru
Jack Mackeown
mackeown@cs.miami.edu

© 2021 Burton Rosenberg