If you are reading this you undoubtedly know how to browse the world wide web. From your workstation the best way to do that is to use netscape or mosaic. Both programs have versions to run under Xwindows, Macintosh, or Windows.
If you are travelling or at home, you can still explore the web from almost any terminal by connecting to one of our workstations and using lynx. This is particularly useful from remote places with slow access.
For other browsers see here.
The most powerful unix editor which is commonly available is "emacs". The principal virtues are that it allows for multiple windows and one can read (and save) mail from within emacs. Version 19 has some X support, with mouse driven commands.
A variant of emacs is "xemacs". Its interface has many mouse driven features which are integrated into Open Windows. It has several mail readers, of which "vm" is especially useful.
You might also try "jove", a light-weight version of emacs.
For previewing a dvi file, you can use xdvi; type ``xdvi name.dvi''.
Ghostview is the standard application for viewing postscript files. First turn ``name.dvi'' into a postscript file by ``dvips name.dvi -o''. This creates ``name.ps'', which can be viewed by ``ghostview name.ps''.
A newer viewer is gv, which is installed on quark, and which is preferable. Notably, with gv the down arrow key brings one down the page, and does not flip the page upside down, as with ghostview. To use, type ``gv name.ps''
The epsf package is good for incorporating figures and color text into your document. See the dvips documentation for details.
To write a letter with a BNL/BSA letterhead, use this letter.tex as a sample. It must be processed with TeXsis, a local TeX macro package that is installed on all of the HET/NT computers. After writing the letter, do "texsis file.tex", then print as usual. The result should look something like this letter.ps. See Section 10 of the TeXsis manual for additional information.
To write a letter with a RIKEN/BNL letterhead, use this rikenletter.tex as a sample. It must be processed with TeXsis. The result should look something like this rikenletter.ps. The RIKEN/BNL letterhead is available only on quark.
The command "tf" will take a filename as an argument, try to decide if it is tex, latex, or texsis, and process it through to displaying it on your X window with either ghostview or gv.
The GNU g77 (Fortran), gcc (ANSI C), and g++ (ANSI C++) compilers are located in /usr/local/bin on quark.phy.bnl.gov. They were compiled for Solaris 2.6 using the egcs-2.91.66 release, so they will not work with older versions of Solaris. The same release is contained in RedHat Linux 6.0. Support for debugging Fortran with gdb is poor.
Please remember not to print a .dvi file. To print a postscript file from the .dvi, do "dvips name.dvi". To produce a postscript file from the .dvi, "dvips name.dvi -o" will produce "name.ps"; you can then print name.ps on a printer by "lp -d destination name.ps", where destination is the name of the printer.
Print queue: ``lpstat''. If you have a long job which isn't going to work, please kill it. Any long jobs should probably be printed in the back room, see ``Alternate printers'' below.
Killing print jobs: First find the process number by ``lpstat''. Then kill it by typing ``cancel lp-\#'', where "lp-\#" is the process number. Alternatively, ``cancel -u username'' should cancel all your print jobs.
For long papers, and really in general, the best printer is in the library. This is very fast, and automatically prints double-sided! Do "lp -dlibrary name.ps" or "lpr -Plibrary name.ps" to print the file "name.ps".
To use the Riken printer in Rm 2-40, do ``lp -drikenpr filename''.
You can also use the HP5si double-sided Postscript printer in 2-84 and
the HP8550 Postscript printer in 1-87:
``lp -dphyhp1 filename'' for the HP5si printer
``lp -dphyhp2 filename'' for the HP8500
``lp -dphyhp2_c filename'' for the HP8500 (color)
Under "Window and link styles", your home page should be
http://thy.phy.bnl.gov/bnl.htmlTo be able to read news groups under Netscape, under ``Mail and News'' select:
News (NNTP) Server: news.bnl.govTo help load pages faster, you should use the CCD proxy server, which provides a cache for the whole Lab. Go to ``Advanced'' under the ``Preferences'' menu. Then under ``Cache'' set the disk cache to 0 kBytes and under ``Proxies'' set
HTTP Proxy: httpproxy.bnl.gov Port: 8080Also set no proxy for bnl.gov.
When you're done, choose ``Save Options''.
To quote from the ITD page on Labmail:
"Labmail is the BNL system for providing a generic e-mail address for BNL employees. This system allows people to contact registered users through an address of the form username@bnl.gov, rather than using the final destination address." To sign up, go to the above link.
This system is most useful if you know with absolute certainty that your employment at BNL will never cease. If you are not certain of this, then you should be aware that under current policy, labmail is turned off the day after your employment is terminated, with no possibility of having your email forwarded to any other account.
ftp ftpgw.sec.bnl.localOnce you are connected, type
quote site your.remote.ip.address user remoteusernameand give your password when prompted. (Of course you should substitute the appropriate values for "your.remote.ip.address" and "remoteusername".) For Telnet, type
telnet tngw.sec.bnl.localOnce you are connected, type
open your.remote.ip.addressand login as usual.
ssh-agent makes ssh even easier to use; it allows you to give a pass phrase once to identify yourself and then to login to remote machines without giving a password. Setting it up does require several steps:
#!/bin/sh if [ -f /usr/bin/X11/fvwm2 ] ; then if [ -f /usr/bin/ssh-agent1 ] ; then exec /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/X11/fvwm2 else exec /usr/bin/X11/fvwm2 fi elif [ -f /usr/local/bin/fvwm2 ] ; then if [ -f /usr/local/bin/ssh-agent1 ] ; then exec /usr/local/bin/ssh-agent /usr/local/bin/fvwm2 else exec /usr/local/bin/fvwm2 fi elif [ -f /usr/local/bin/fvwm ] ; then exec /usr/local/bin/fvwm fiSee the "Secure Shell" section for a discussion of ssh-agent.
Cernlib documentation is available from CERN. The RHIC Computing Facility has local copies, although these may be out of date.
Type ``help'' for online documentation.
Control p (n) lets you flip back (forward) through the command history so you don't need to retype long lines.
We also have Doug's program ``axis''.
Once you get used to the interface, ``xfig'' makes nice line drawings.
The dumb but efficient way of using mathematica is to login to M and type
For long jobs, you need an editor. There are two ways to proceeding, each a putz. The first is to edit a file separately with the editor of your choice, and then read ``filename'' in by ``In[1]:= < < filename'' in mathematica. This is good for long files, but awkward for single lines.
If you use emacs, you can do the following. On machine M, type ``emacs &'' to open a local window running emacs off of M. Then get into shell, ``M-x shell'', and whence into Mathematica. One can then use emacs commands in the Mathematica shell. If you use tcsh, bash, etc, you will find annoying characters such as control M at the end of each line. To avoid this, add the line "setenv ESHELL /bin/csh" to your .cshrc file.
Figures: See below on setting the DISPLAY variable if you want graphics. Plots in Mathematica will pop up a new window with the graph on your screen. To save it, type
Unlike Mathematica 2, both versions 3 and 4 can use the $DISPLAY variable properly. But they still need special fonts installed in the local X-server, i.e., in your desktop machine. This requires mounting the exported Mathematica directory on your local machine with the same name as it has on the remote machine.
/usr/local/adobe/Illustrator_5.5/bin/illustrator &
Adobe Illustrator allows you to draw and modify postscript files.
To edit postscript files with AI, first type
ps2ai file.ps
and then run AI on the output, which is file.ai.
Within AI, files can be saved as "file.eps", which can then be used in LaTeX, etc.
One can generate adobe figures within Mathematica, and then edit them with AI.
To draw Feynman diagrams directly with AI, use the sample files from FeynDiagram (/usr/local/src/FeynDiagram/Examples), convert to .ai format as above, and then use in AI.
mkdir $HOME/.sketch cp ~paige/.sketch/*.py $HOME/.sketchYour LD_LIBRARY_PATH needs to be properly set, e.g.,
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /lib:/usr/lib:/usr/openwin/lib:/usr/local/libFor more information see the Sketch user's guide and developer's guide.
To use FeynDiagram, write a C++ program, say myfig.C, describing the diagram following the documentation in /usr/local/src/FeynDiagram/Docs and the examples in /usr/local/src/FeynDiagram/Examples on quark.phy.bnl.gov. The documentation and the examples are very good; you do not need any prior knowledge of C++. Compile your program with the GNU C++ compiler and execute it as follows:
g++ -o myfig myfig.C -lFD -lm myfig > myfig.ps ps2epsi myfig.ps myfig.eps
Before you use Star Office for the first time, you must run
/Office51/bin/setupFollow the prompts; the defaults are all reasonable. After running this setup (once), you can start Star Office by typing
~/Office51/bin/soffice [filename]You may wish to define an alias for this, e.g.,
alias soffice "~/Office51/bin/soffice \!*"
Before you use Open Office for the first time, you must run
/OpenOffice.org1.0/setupFollow the prompts; the defaults are all reasonable. After running this setup (once), you can start Open Office by typing
/OpenOffice.org1.0/program/soffice [filename]You may wish to define an alias for this, e.g.,
alias soffice "/OpenOffice.org1.0/program/soffice"
Some clever systems will try to guess who you want to reach from a guess at their address. This can be very useful for reaching someone whose address you are not sure of. For an example:
wind.phy.bnl.gov% finger gupta@lanl.gov [lanl.gov] 108097 Gupta Goutam T-10 K710 505-665-6463 099533 Gupta Rajan T-8 B285 505-667-7664 rg@lanl.govand you find Rajan's phone number and a good candidate for an email address. Sometimes it doesn't work so well:
wind.phy.bnl.gov% finger ginsparg@xxx.lanl.gov [xxx.lanl.gov]Sadly, life's mysteries must remain hidden from so many of you.
A newer version of compression is "gzip". "gzip filename" will produce "filename.gz". To uncompress, "gunzip filename.gz" will give back "filename" It is best using "gzip" and "gunzip" whenever possible. In particular, the hep server at Los Alamos now uses gzip for many papers; uncompress will not work.
If you have a file you want to uuencode, then type
Now you should know what to do with something called "file.tar.Z.uu" or "file.tar.gz.uu"
The program ``uufiles'' will put a bunch of files into an automatically unpacking compressed uuencoded tarfile ready for mailing.
To reverse the process:
If you have a color monitor, you can play with the Bak, Tang, Wiesenfeld sandpile model by typing "xsand" at one of our sparcstations. To see the Potts model in action, type "xpotts." Finally, try "xautomalab" for more general cellular automata. The sources are available here. They should compile on anything supporting Xwindows with color.
To find out your operating system version, type "uname -a"
Note, the -9 lets "kill" stop anything you are allowed to; it may be "overkill" but won't hurt in this case.
If openwindows gets more seriously stuck, then kill -9 the process called openwin from the remote terminal.
Don't get carried away with fancy html tricks, at least on your top level page. Maybe modems are getting faster, but in practice transfer rates of more than a few hundred bytes per second are unusual. If you keep all the stuff, including graphics, on your top page to under 10K, the waiting time for downloading it is fairly tolerable. Also check that it looks O.K. under a more versitile browser, such as lynx.
Note also that web servers often log the requests they receive. Ours are logged on quark in /usr/local/etc/apache/var/log/access_log. After you set up your page, you can find out if anyone else has looked at it by grepping that file. This file is rotated twice a month since it grows so fast.