Setting up the "Lab Equipment"

Summary: The computer-based projects in this laboratory use the the Grinnell College Linux Network, commonly referred to as "MathLAN". This document/section provides some basic guidelines for getting started with these workstations.

Equipment

You will need

• A MathLAN workstation (available in Science 3813).
• A sheet of paper containing your MathLAN account and password. Note that your MathLAN account and your normal Grinnell account are likely to have different passwords.
• Patience.

Logging In

The first step on most shared-use computers, such as those in MathLAN, is to "log in" to the computer. You should have a username and password for MathLAN which are separate from those for the rest of Grinnell. (Believe it or not, but the password proliferation help protect privacy.)

• On the computer in front of you, you should see a small window that asks you to log in. If you don't see such a window, try hitting a key on the keyboard or clicking the power button on the monitor.
• Enter your user name. Press the "Enter" key.
• Enter your password (which won't appear on the screen). Press the "Enter" key.
• Get help if those previous two steps don't work.

The Terminal and Chromium

While there are many ways to interact with our Linux workstations It turns out that for some activities, it's easier and faster to type commands than to use a graphical user interface (GUI). On Linux workstations, you type commands into a "Terminal".

• Click on the icon that looks like a computer screen. (If you have no such icon, click on the icon of the small creature over a blue X that appears in the lower left corner of your screen. Then, select "System" and "Terminal".) A window will appear that will let you type.
• Type the following command to start the Chromium Web browser. Don't forget the ampersand at the end of the command. chromium &
• Direct your Web browser to open the pages at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/Workshops/GSP2015/ and http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/Workshops/GSP2015/web.html
• Get help if those previous steps don't work.

Configuring Your Account (a.k.a. "Magic Incantations")

We need to configure your account a bit so that things will work well for tomorrow's lab. If we had more time, we'd teach you all of the ins and outs of the commands you need. For now, we'll give you a few "magic incantations" to type.

• Type each of the following commands (note that the first two commands each ends with a space and then a period.

   chmod 711 .
   cp -R /home/rebelsky/Web/Workshops/GSP2015/public_html .
   chmod 755 public_html
   chmod 644 public_html/*
  

• If all went well, you now have a Web presence. In Chromium, navigate to http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~username/ (substituting your own user name). If all goes well, you will see on of the most hideous résumés ever created. If not, ask for help.

Optional Task

If you have at least five minutes left, spend some time on this optional task.

You have at least three Web pages up right now. Each page has a variety of kinds of text. Identify as many different roles that text are playing as you can (e.g., pages may have different kinds of section headings).

Finishing Up and Logging Out

You're done. To log out, click on your username at the lower right corner of the screen, and select "Log Out".

Do not turn off the monitor or computers.

Note that you currently have an awful Web presence. We'll make it better and then give you the opportunity to get rid of it tomorrow.