Survey Commts

# Comments from on-line survey of students - March, 1998

Quickstations or even small athena clusters in the dorms would be nice!

Athena sucks, that's why I got my own computer. Trying adding some software that's relevant to the outside world.

Please provide support for Windows NT! It's the OS of the future.

Quickstations should be a ubiquitous presence on the campus. They are terrific.

I am inclined to think that haveing 10-baseT MIT ethernet jacks around the campus would be a good idea.

re question 15, we already have net drops in our lounge (east campus)

Put a lab in every dorm and get rid of the ancient computers currently in the labs.

The drop connection on the dormitories is not totally good. One drop per room, especially in doubles and triples is not enough. In my case, I've waiting for the installation of a drop in my room since last September and until now, ending of February, I still don't have it. MIT makes your life easier giving you the opportunity to log in without using a modem, but it should make this service more available.

It would be nice to have a small Athena cluster (or at least a Quickstation) in every dorm. It would save people long walks to Athena clusters just to check e-mail.

When is the latest version of Eudora going to be available for Windows 95? The web page has being saying when the installation program is ready, but that is what it had been saying since the beginning of the school year. I would appreciate it if the latest version could be available soon.

I use lynx at home so I don't have to pay for an ISP since i live off campus and am not on MITnet.

Add a clock (or make it more visible) to all Cluster Status maps. Palm Pilot Hotsync support on Athena.

Dialup has been unbelievably slow of late (I do not recall it being so slow before I went home for winter break). Connecting to dialup - whether athena or express - involves a 5 to 10 second wait for a login name prompt, followed by a 5 to 10 second wait for a password prompt, followed by 5 to 10 seconds before one is logged in and has a prompt. Commands from that prompt are also processed slowly (I only use Athena for email) but with an acceptable (usually 1 to 2 second) lag time. This with an ethernet connection! I do not use clusters - I am a Biology graduate student and have little or no use for the resources available there - but it seems to me that those of us who simply need to check email a few times a day (and, of course, actually check email many times a day) are being poorly served by the resources available for dialup connections, especially for connections on MITnet. Thank for your time.

I live at a private residence and have free access to a network provider. Hence I don't need MIT Tether. However this significantly limits my ability to full utilize the MIT internet resources (s.a. hostxplorer, eudora and other useful software items or off limits sites). Given that I _CAN_ access my student account through websis, I find the lack of MITnet access through regular internet to be frustrating and insufficient to my environment. I hope that MITnet will one day fully support browser Key signatures to give full access to its students who reside outside of the academic computing domain.

I don't understand question 15--space available outside your room for hooking up your computer? Like in the hall??

Need more support for Linux systems!

Please improve Tether environment. I often encounter lost packets.

Protocols to access MIT networks should be made easier for those of us living in off-campus housing. I'll be damned if I would pay ludicrous amounts for tether. I pay $8.50 a month for internet access, but I would like to legally access eudora, and have my mail authenticated.

2 drops a room would be really convenient as now a lot of computers do not have AUI support.

Don't use Athena cluster, but PC in the lab. The PC I use runs Linux - Athena

I think PC are better since you don't have to get out of your room to access a computer... specially if you live in Mc Gregor, Tang, Next or New house.

The Quickstations are a good idea, but there aren't enough of them to make a difference. There really ought to be one or two in every cluster (or at least, every large cluster) to help prevent cluster crowding.

Is it possible to have a few Sparc4's with 64 meg of RAM? This would be useful since they're rated to be faster otherwise. Dialup service is very nicely implemented (never busy or slow, etc.)

I think machines designated as Quickstations could be better used as normal Athena workstations. More frequent printer maintenance and workstation rebooting would decrease waiting time in clusters.

i don't get question 15. why would i want to connect it in my dorm, outside? are you talking about laptops? if i had a laptop it would come in handy, i suppose.

I strongly feel that MIT should change its email system to one that is IMAP-based so that clients like Netscape Mail can access students' email, yet keep all the data on students' Athena accounts. Also, MIT should definitely adopt a standard for encrypted email (preferably S/MIME, but at least choose), so that we can start making everyone send encrypted email. MIT should also have a public LDAP server so that public keys can be looked up by everyone.

I use emacs to do most of everything, including mail.

Need cheaper dialup service (Tether) for when I am traveling. Need extended workhours for PC Computing Help Desk. Speed of the dorm MITnet connections is great.

Since my computer is on the net, I'm concerned about the network security. I've found that the MIT net does not provide enough helpful information.

Athena clusters in the dorms would be really convenient-- especially for those in the dorms farthest from campus.

ilg lines need to be upgraded... my house (ADP) is still using a 56K line which is not nearly enough to handle the 30-40 computers on our network. We have begun making trips to campus with zip disks in order to download large stuff so it doesn't take up too much time and waste our local bandwidth; however this seems to defeat the purpose of the newtowrk. We have been promised T1's for the last 2 years but there is always some hang up. Im sure other houses feel the same way and encourage you to look into upgrading all the ILGs to atleast T1 status. Will Johnson

Athena use has risen dramatically during the four years that I have been here. The clusters are getting pretty crowded, and classes are relying more and more on online resources. Please considered allocating more resources for Athena clusters; every little bit helps. Also, I think Athena chairs should actually get replaced when they are falling apart, so some hapless person doesn't tip over and fall on the ground because his chair is missing a wheel :) Also, maybe people who steal/damage Athena chairs should be tortured. :)

Love the NT idea for campus....

like to see more Linux surport.

I'd really like to see MIT develop or sponsor a kerberized PS print spooler for MacOS to allow printing to athena printers.

Hello my name is soo-youn ham! I want to be exchange student state at mit I entrance in- chun universty in korea Please tel me imformation Thank you good bye~ ^_^;

I would like to be able to use tether without paying of for the hookup fee (at least that is my understanding) I would like to be able to access the web from home.

I don't use the athena clusters, per se. I primarily use the course 1 Master's of Engineering room which has PCs, not UNIX machines.

Muiltiple drops should be installed per person, since I and many other people have more than one machine. Also, it would be awful if Wintel PCs were put into Athena clusters. They are not nearly as flexible interface wise, they become obselete quickly, they tend to use poor quality components (EIDE drives), and are just plain ugly to look at. If you really want something cheaper, at least use something Un*x based like Apple's upcoming Rhaphsody. It suposedly is quite stable, unlike the NT machines I have to use at work.

I am off-campus and decided not to use MIT's Tether because it is quite a bit more expensive then a connection from an "unlimited access" ISP. By not being connected, I found it extremely difficult to use MIT's Eudora setup and impossible to use secure TELNET - and so I can't read my MIT e-mail form home - something that I would very much like to be able to do.

Security is a big concern for me. Athena cluster machines are physcially insecure, and, as the Skull House hack last fall demonstrated, the machines are quite easily suspectible to attack. Students need better, more secure software, like a secure ftp client.

you forgot GAMES both networked and stand alone as an important class of computer activities

we need more computing facilities and better computers...

I use Linux as my primary operating system, reading my mail with the emacs gnus mail/news reader, storing recent mail in my athena account and transferring older mail to my desktop machine. I typically use clusters to check my mail during the day (I get ~5 msgs/hr @ 16 hr/day) and to write up papers and problem sets; most programming and leisure browsing is from my desktop machine. I used to use MacOS and Eudora, but they did not provide the power, versatility, *platform-independence*, and Athena support that I needed, so I switched to Linux. I live at Epsilon Theta, which has a T1 conenction to MITnet with ethernet drops in every room and a ~3:2 ports-to-pillows ratio. I have absolutely no idea what you mean by question 15 -- why would anyone connect outside of his/her room? If you mean net drops for laptops, such as a few classrooms have now, I might use them but doubt it, since I would use them as clusters obviate the need for a laptop.

Why don't you ask about the Tether service? There are actually people out there who mainly on the Tether service to get online.

While the Athena System is versatile and well-funded, much of its software seems very outdated. As the use of personal computers increases, less Unix software seems to be available. For most of the programs students use, it seems that a Windows machine rather than a Unix machine would be more useful in terms of software availability. For example: I think anyone would rather use Eudora than xmh Netscape 4.0 rather than Netscape 3.0 Office programs (word processor, spreadsheet, i.e. MS Office) rather than Latex While there are several course-specific programs on Athena machines, most use of the clusters seems to be primarily for one of the activities listed above. Much better programs and cheaper computers are available for e-mail, web surfing, and writing papers. Thus, I think it may be time to phase PC's into the Athena project, or find ways to replace much of the outdated Athena software. There is just no reason to be using a program like Emacs that was developed decade! s ago at the most technologically advanced school in the nation.

I use macs, pc's and unix stations at the helpdesk, for a total of about 30 hours/week. I telnet to athena and use network applications -netscape and hostexplorer mostly- to do my work. If i had it my way, i would have a couple of laptops. A mac, because they are simple and they are very pleasing to the touch and sight; and a pc because of the software available and price. I would also have a pc desktop computer at my apartment because they are inexpensive and they are getting better.

Access for Win95 machines and licensed software really needs work. Mac users (who are a minority) even get better software (e.g. matlab and maple off of the keyserver, etc.)

Can we please have some system allowing non-UNIx users to have a single mailbox between athena and their Mac/PCs? Maybe you could export the Mail/inbox/ and have a plugin that Eudora would support it or something.

It would be nice to have a cluster in each dorm, or the farhter ones at least. Otherwise it's a long walk to the Student Centre, especially during bad weather.

love the T1. now if only we could have the router password... another thing... hacking from outside is getting quite out of hand.

Some public PC or Mac clusters would be nice. In particular, PCs with printers connected to them so people can quickly print out their papers that they wrote on their PCs but want to print/make corrections to on campus.

athena mail handler really sucks. need to get a site liscense for eudora pro 3.0 for mit

It might be useful to provide good instructions for setting up linux on a home pc. also, dialup PPP access should be free for students!!!

It might be useful to provide good instructions for setting up linux on a home pc. also, dialup PPP access should be free for students!!!

Quickstations are becoming too heavily used to be convenient- it's usually faster to go to an Athena cluster than wait in line.

The Quickstation is NOT even "QUICK", they are always the slowest machines on campus, and you will waste minutes to just login So, why not you just upgrade to sun5 or what?

Want improved bandwidth (to campus) and printing facilities for ILG users

Many students have multiple computers and only on Ethernet drop in their rooms. I know it is expensive to add extra drops, and that hubs and routers are a violation of M.I.T.'s network rules, but it would be *really* nice to hook up multiple machines from my dorm room. Specifically, people with a laptop and a desktop machine cannot even use UTP to AUI converters, as laptops can't have AUI (easily). Just my 2 cents.

Should provide ethernet ports in labs so students can bring laptops and make use of data analysis packages on Athena (matlab,etc.) from the labs while doing their experiments. (Note:I'm currently a Junior Lab student)

Porting -> NT is a bad idea--why should we devote our resources to doing that? What happened to Rhapsody?

The quickstation machines should be faster - waiting to log in takes longer than anything else on those machines.

In past semesters I used Athena extensively for e-mail and course VI classes, but now that i have a computer I do that from home

MIT should have a free service of thether for students living off campus in a private appartment. Ivan

Quickstations are a great idea for e-mail type activities and quick printing jobs... Maybe they don't have to be full fledged workstations... I need Athena, cause I don't have the resources to invest in a personal computer that will be obsolete in a couple years

Does MIT have a site license for Unix Matlab? (I've heard conflicting rumors.) If so, where can I get a copy for the Linux boxes in my lab? thanks, partan@mit.edu

I feel one of the biggest issues for MIT to address is dialup services for those students like me who live off campus. I might be inclined to buy a computer if I felt that the dialup services were equal to those of other students on RESNET. Because I have to come to campus to do even basic things (library searches, etc,) I don't use athena for a lot of the fluff i see others doing(ie zephyr and world wide web browsing)

put Solaris back on the athena.dialup machines; they are as slow as the DEC's were now!

i would just leave things as they are. don't bring in NT into athena clusters--YUCK! I'm using Linux-Athena on my personal machine.

Have 3rd computer, laptop: i586 166MHz Use occasionally when moving around campus. Mostly used for business + telnet into my workstation.

It would be nice to be able to leave a copy of the email on the server after using Netscape or exmh on a cluster. That way it is possible to check the email in the clusters and still check them again from home for storage.

I use a private Athena workstation at MIT, which I use 8-12 hours/day. If I had access to a faster connection to MIT (i.e., cable-based access) that was within my financial means, I would probably use that.

Students living off campus get screwed as usual. Not only was I bumped from having 8 undergrad terms of on-campus housing, but as a result, I have to pay for PPP access with a 100-hour limit. Someone please explain why I am a second class citizen (I don't even ask for 1% of the bandwith of dorms or frats-- I don't want no cablemodem or DSL-- just EQUITABLE access to the network)

Athena CAD simulations are so slow due to hardware limitations

NEED MORE ZIP DRIVES!!!!

I have read the Athena handout from rush, but it contained nothing about personalization, or anything cool other than the basics. Are there any handouts or pamphlets that explain other, deeper information about the athena unix command system?

It would be nice if more software applications that are important for classes supported platforms like Linux and FreeBSD, since so many students run these operating systems for ResNet purposes. It seems like MIT could put pressure on the distributors of software to make this happen, or in the case of stuff that's developed at MIT, make sure that common ResNet platforms are supported.

Personal computer: I have a crappy computer that I have not used in at least 2 years. Athena is so far superior. I also use the PCs in my lab quite a bit (CPRL). Quickstations: Quickstations are the slowest machines in Athena. I usually try to find a normal workstation for quick logins b/c they are faster. Sometimes, I get stuck with a quickstation. Even so, the quickstation cluster in bldg 11 is a great idea, except that it is always full. I've _wanted_ to use it before, but there's never an open machine. Athena: I LOVE Athena. My best work is done in the machines in classrooms. They are quiet, allow lots of space, and good lighting. More classroom stations would always be good. However, on a scale from 1 to 10, I'd have to give Athena services a 9 overall. My only complaint is that the real world doesn't use Unix and that I feel vastly underprepared to use PCs on a daily basis out in the rat race.

Increase the number of Athena clusters at MIT!

I would really like to see free or very cheap PPP connections for off campus people not on MITnet. The current plan has a 100hr limit, which would not allow me to leave my computer on with PPP most of the time. Since I work both at home and office, it would be great if I could do that, say in a year or so when I move to my own place. I would also like to see scripts provided by athena to "localize" a particular application to one computer, if applicable (due to license constraints). I often spend too much time trying to get a particular piece of software on my computer so it would run faster. Example, java compiler...

If the quickstations were faster than Sparc classics, I would probably use them more often. (Yes, I know, how did I ever survive with those DECstations two years ago ... I've just been spoiled with the speed of my Linux box and the Sparc 4/5s.) =-) However, from an economical point of view, I think that using those Sparc classics as quickstations is better than just throwing them out.

I know people who do not have a usable network drop in their room and have been told for 6 months that it will be installed "soon." How can you even think about putting drops outside of rooms when you can't even install enough in the rooms themselves?!? Question 10b is silly since people can't read their MIT mail using Netscape or any other program that doesn't support Kerberos. Surely you know that, so why did you ask? If you meant to include non-MIT mail, then you should have said so. Please make it clear that you are actually doing something with this data. It seems that most of the survey results on this campus are compiled and stuffed in a drawer without even being looked at. If you aren't doing anything with it, stop wasting our time.

We should get some NT workstations for an athena cluster. I would like better pop flexibilty. upgrade modems for tether

Q. 10b I marked that I telent to athena dialup... that is not true, I check my email on Athena but I am connected to MIT Net so I dont have to telnet to a machine.. I use Linux. Thsi choice was not there in the Q. Q.15 We have some ethernet jacks in Senior House in the suite and lounges... and when I have my parents laptop at school (last year) i would often take it out with me and connect there.

Amiga 3000 running the Amiga OS and also NetBSD I hope any changes made to the athena environment will allow for the existence of other platforms and operating systems. Though the most common systems have to be accomodated, don't develop things in such a way that makes it difficult for other systems to coexist.

what does question 15 mean? I have my own mail server (IMAP) at lab, don't use Athena for much of anything.

my roommate has a laptop so it cannot share with my desktop. i hog the one ethernet drop in our baker double.

Your questions asked what I have done on Athena in the past month. In general, this month was not very representative. In several classes, I will have significantly more computer- related coursework (data analysis, etc.) than I had during the first month of the semester.

My computer is not connected to MIT Net, but my living grooup owns four that are connected. Thus I use these more than either Athena clusters or my own computer. It is the cost of an ethernet card which is preventing me from connecting from my computer.

sell cheap 386 linux workstations :-P

(1) Better support for MS Windows: Mac has had key-served applications for several years now, but no progress on same support for Windows; still haven't supplied a Windows Zephyr client or Kerberized FTP client; and only recently provided a Kerberized telnet for Windows, several years after doing so for the Mac Despite the fact that more students here probably run Windows systems than Mac or UNIX workstations, you give these systems the least support. Running Info. Systems isn't about what _you_ feel is the best platform --- it's about supporting what your _clients_ want to use (2) More SGI systems in more clusters --- several classes require the use of these systems, yet you have to search from cluster to cluster in the hope of finding one free (3) Why not publish a list of all the software available on Athena? You claim to do so, but your lists leave out a _lot_ of software. I was once told by one of your consultants that this would be too "complicated" to do, as th! ere was simply "too much" software. Well, why bother having it if you won't even tell people it exists? You have to install the software to begin with --- why not add it to the list at that point in time?

I just sent this form but forgot the comment I wanted to make which was that along with Eudora and telnet to dialup and the rest, using MH on my own computer should be listed as an option for how I read mail at home. Oh well, whatever.

I bought my PC after my first semester at MIT. This is my second semester. To buy the PC I have had to work 22 hours a week during the IAP and winter break but I found it impossible to do my programming assignments in the labs due to crowdedness and noise.

I like computers. They are waacky.

We have a study room with a few machines (nt, mac, linux). This has turned out to be rather useful; my computer is too old to do many things, but I don't have to walk all the way to campus to do athena work.

It would be nice to be able to run X-windows applications such as Netscape over a dialup connection.

While I rarely use cluster machines, I do use machines in my lab and elsewhere, especially in my dorm room.

It will be better if ICQ for JDK can be installed on Athena so that users do not need to put the whole directory in their own account. It takes up quite a big portion of the account quota.

I think athena clusters should be availiable in dormitories, especially on the west side of campus to make academic computing more accessible. Face the facts: more often now thatn ever classes are requiring use of athena for academic uses of computing. Since students live far from the closest cluster, and taking into account how bad Boston weather is, academic computing is pretty much restricted to only those students that own computers! I also think that support groups, such as athena consulting, should be a lot closer to campus than N42 for the simple reason of being more accessible. It makes no sense having support far away from users. It's basically saying that you the user must go out of your way to get help. I do NOT think that is the impression that one wants to make.

I do most of my computing on my roommate's computer or on the computers at my jobs.

mit should put up at least 1 sunsparc-5 in every fsilgs. when is student house going to get t3? why this discrimination? (we currently have 64k conn.)

Support NT asap!

For those who live off of campus MITnet only exists on campus. Tether service is not worth the cost, plus the restrictions on its use make it much less attractive than using an ISP. That may be too difficult of a problem to expect an easy solution too. I wholly support the continued IS support of linux. I would like to see more applications for this free OS. Is it possible to implement a radio ethernet at MIT? It would be very nice to be able to use a laptop at a coffee shop or out on the Killian Court lawn. SIPB should be seriously commended for their Linux-Athena effort. Without it, my computers wouldn't nearly be as useful. Perhaps they could get some support from IS for their effort? --john

The Athena concept has become a joke! only 20 MB of storage so I can't ftp anything of import. No pc software like spreadsheets or word processors. Get with the program, do you think we write these in EMACS? It takes half an hour to figure out how to use a floppy disk on a sparcstation. Egads..... Now, what IS great about MIT is the good bandwidth to the internet. But that's about all I get out of Athena, and that's not worth my $24,000 in tuition.

Athena machines are becoming too slow in comparison to PCs. Perhaps five years ago, a Sparc V was faster than a 386/33. But, with Pentium Pros, II's, etc, coming out, the campus computer system needs to upgrade to keep its reputation as the best campus computer system in the world. Also, telnet machines need to be upgraded. There should be more than one server with X capability. I have tried to run X apps with mint-square.mit.edu and have had horrible connections many times. Fundamentally, MIT's computer systems should always be one notch better than any other university's. Right now, with the exception of Ethernet connections in every Living group, MIT is not on top. That needs to change.

-Get some athena terminals in the dorms. -Ethernet drops at various parts of the campus and lecture halls, like what is done at Sloan -Windows athena terminals in addition to unix.

Perhaps it would be more cost efficient to have more Linux- Athena boxes than expensive Suns and SGIs. I have found my own Linux box to be much faster on average than the Suns and SGIs in the clusters. Plus, most applications run on Linux. Only for applications such as AutoCad are Suns and SGIs necessary. This approach would also allow for a greater overall number of workstations.

It would be nice if the athena.dialup and x.dialup machines were faster. They are really slow when I telnet into them.

I have been on the waiting list for a drop in my room since august. i have been repeatedly ignored and brushed off in this request. before you put drops outside of my room for me to connect, why not make sure that everyone can connect from their room? it would really piss me off if i could connect from my hall but still couldn't get IS to put a drop in my room...

I have a PC at home which I use TelNet to connect to MITnet.

Please, upgrade the cluster workstation. Not Classic or Sparc 5 please. We are MIT. Other XYZ universities are using Pentium II & G3 & UltraSparc. There should be at least some publicly accessiblt PC * Mac for printing etc.

Does it make sense to secure the mail server with kerberos while unsecure telnet access is still prossible. Also, it is hard to get the necessary setup on PCs if you are not directly connected to MITnet, e.g. when you are dialing up using an ISP. Most of the MIT installers don't work on this kind of setup.... The costs for MITnet drops in the offices and especially for IP-addresses are much to high.

For those without personal machines, two or three Quickstations in each dorm would be a good idea. Also: IMHO, 10BT Ethernet should be phased out in favor of 100BT. Maybe change the recommended adapter to the 3Com 3C905TX? (who needs the AUI connector, anyway?)

as an undergrad i didn't buy a computer because of the expense and because i always had access to athena. finding a computer was never a problem. however, i have found that having my own computer is incredibly convenient, and, looking back, i wish that i had bought one instead of trekking home from the clusters at 4 am.

Being able to download stuff (like Netscape) from LCS at 700k per second really rocks!

Athena: The number of computers in the fishbowl needs to be increased.

Replace Athena with a mostly NT-based PC network, with some Unix boxes for what they are good at. Athena had its heyday, which is over.

Living in a dorm quite far from the nearest athena cluster, it was such a pain to go and check my mail when I wanted to. A cluster in the dorms would help this problem so much. Also, because it is very hard to get an extra drop put into a room, hubs should be allowed. There are people who have illegal ones, and they work just fine.

How come the cluster machines are so slow, especially compared to Linux-Athena PCs? Are there any plans to put clusters on West Campus, i.e. near or in the western dorms?

I think there are large problems with security on MITnet. Although I am periodically required to log into cluster machines, the machines are so compromised that I am putting my password (and therefore indirectly all of my e-mail and personal files) at risk each time. This also puts at risk any linux machines that I am able to telnet to, thereby potentially compromising all of MITnet. I/S needs to address this issue by either being much more careful to keep cluster machines secure and monitoring the network for unencrypted telnet, or else MIT risks large security breaches of MITnet.

athena clusters are very useful, sometimes too crowded during the day, otherwise you can always find a workstation and work wh

en you have work to do. I wish Athena had Pine.

It's so wonderful to be able to connect to MITnet from my dorm room. Having an linux terminal in my room is extremely helpful.

please improve email and GUI on Athena. I and many others I know were compelled to buy computers and printers because Athena and department computer resources were cumbersome and unstable (although more powerful) compared to Windows products.

It would be very helpful to have athena quickstations or a mini-cluster in the dorms far from the STudent Center, especially Next House

It would be very helpful to have athena quickstations or a mini-cluster in the dorms far from the STudent Center, especially Next House

not every has a personal computer Don't assume everyone will, they are expensive. Maybe put clusters in dorms. Especially dorms that are far away from the Student Center like New, Next

it'd be very nice to have more x.dialup machines.. mint-square often has ~90 users and a load of nearly 20 it'd be kinda neat to have more quickstations around the campus.. they don't even have to be sparcs.. just save some old 486s from the dumpster.. (if it's just for email checking) question 9: compiling linux kernels.. everything else just ain't hardcore

A list of chemistry related software packages and their appropriate "lockers" would be nice. I'm specifically interested in ChemDraw right now as it would be nice to have for 5.32's lab reports.

MIT dialups should support PPP and/or SLIP. Other schools give this service for free, and MIT should certainly be able to keep up with other universities in terms of computing resources. That we're charged to use PPP with MIT is ridiculous. I live off campus and would use PPP very much for my schoolwork and research.

I just bought my Laptop....

Here are the biggest problems I see with MITnet: * No support for e-mail programs that use POP3 instead of Kerberos. Yes, this does prevent those with packet sniffers to get your password, but how hard would it be to write a little app that uses Kerberos to connect to the mail servers, download the e-mail, and then sit and act as a little POP3 server so a standard POP3 e-mail program can use localhost as the POP3 server? No password would be transmitted across the network unencrypted... * Pathetic bandwith to our house (ADP). 56K shared among 50 people is not enough. Most of the time it is sooooo slow that it is impossible to check e-mail or even download the current problem sets and lecture notes. This NEEDS to be fixed ASAP. * Those few programs that MIT offers that use Kerberos (HostExplorer and Eudora) are never up-to-date with the latest version. * The Athena print servers don't use the standard lpd. This prevents us from printing to Athena printers from a Win! dows machine (and it's not possible to put the document on a disk and load it at an Athena machine).

on question 10c. I save my mail on both my athena account and my personal computer.

I hate Athena....why can't we have regular computers(PCs) in the computer labs.

With the overwhelming popularity of PC's in student residences, I feel that the MIT community would have much to gain from NT PC's publicly available in clusters. I am well aware of the security and maintainability considerations, but would say that the next release of NT (5.0) contains many features that would make it an ideal environment for Athena workstations. Additionally, I would like to see a WINS (or equivalent) be used on MITNet. With the amount of resources that go into routing AppleTalk on our network, allowing users to browse Windows-based domains or groups would be extremely valuable, and would better represent the world outside MIT.

I personally would like a way to hook my laptop up to the network outside of my room's MITnet drop. Ricochet modem capability would be ideal. I feel stupid logging on to a UNIX station just to check e-mail in the middle of the day. I think there should be cheap stations (say, a Wintel only running a telnet client) available to log in to the dialup machines strictly for the purpose of checking e-mail. Even the QuickStations are a waste of the UNIX machine's capabilities.

The computer desks in the clusters are a major contributing factor to RSI. On some desks it is very hard to be comfortable when working for a long period.

There should be some effort to allow multiple computers w/ 10-base-t connections to be connected in dorm rooms. Most (if not all) laptops come w/ 10-base-t ethernet connections standard. This means that it is impossible to connect more than one into a room. This is poor. Many students have desktop and laptop machines and it would be good for them to be able to use both machines on the net in their rooms.

SIPB needs to upgrade several pieces of online software, notably GIMP

It would be nice to be able to know the information necessary to connect laptops to the net in libraries, etc

It would be nice if MIT had a site license for a Macintosh X client of some sort.

Frame network is *slow* This is running FreeBSD... a friend set it up. There was a lack of good help available when it was giving us problems. I use xmh to read my mail most often as this is an Athena machine (on the Unix side.) I find it *very* helpful to have an Athena machine - telnet often has problems (will not encrypt or very slow) - can use programs telnet will not support - much easier to use a computer here in my ILG than go to campus at night or on weekends Many programs, however, are only Linux, not NetBSD... which is a royal pain.

Athena cluster appears to be overloaded; many machines are outdated and network is slow.

I would like to see more active support of the linux operating system for non-PC based versions of linux. I would also like to see more workstations on campus. Although I prefer SGI's personally, I would very much appreciate there just being more SUN4's around to log into during peak use periods. Several times I have tried to find a free computer at 3pm, and found that the first 4 clusters I checked were full. Thanks for your time, A. Nonymous

Perhaps there is an easier way to sync Euroda mailboxes and Athena ~/Mail/inboxes?

Re: question 15, I answered yes although space is freely available all over TEP, my house. We have computers in the kitchens and bathrooms and about three in each bedroom.

I have used Athena during most of my stay here in MIT, but to do my thesis I needed to buy a new Windows Computer. I find Athena very usefull, but I guess that If I had my computer during most of the time I spent here I would have not used athena that much. Besides, as I live on campus I am connected to MITNET, which is a great service.

The Sun Sparc keyboards and the SGI machines have different keyboards. It makes it really hard to become a better typer when the keys are in different places. The SGIs have the better ones, the classic ones with the big Backspace button and the CTRL key down by the arrow keys. Also, what the hell is that "compose" key supposed to do on the Sun Sparcs?

Quickstations are much too slow and useless!

Athena needs to get some Intel PC's soon.

If the purchase of an approved computer were requred for students at MIT, would the expense be covered as part of Financial Aid? Although MIT culture shuns top-down control, this is a possible advantage to such a policy. As an alternative, each Course should develop its own policy --- Course VI may indeed want to require students to own a particular kind of machine, to ease the burden of teaching staff in developing and supporting courseware. I have been a T.A. for 6.001, 6.004, and 6.111. Each of these courses maintains its own individual clusters of computer workstations for student use. None of these courses makes extensive use of Athena, to the best of my knowledge, except as an additional option for editing files. (to the extent that athena was supported in 001 & 004, it was on a "voluntary, best-effort" basis. My point is that the support of large central clusters for which faculty from across the Institute are expected to write software that works on it is qu! estionable. The faculty don't feel in "control" and the stressed TAs don't have time/know how to support Athena cluster usage. There is no Athena workstation at the AI lab, where the faculty & support for many Course VI classes occurs. This is what motavates the creation and support of private clusters for individual classes. Besides, many lab assignments require special equipment (EPROM burners, the creation of sounds or noises etc., attaching your robot to the workstation) that are strictly disallowed in Athena clusters anyhow. So if each Course develops a computing policy/standard, that feels closer to the T.A.s and faculty than if the Institute as a whole has one. I hope this helps... good luck!

I usually run NetBSD on my 386, but not X, so I really appreciate it when there are non-graphical versions of programs available. (I use lynx a lot, and course web pages which specifically require Netscape are annoying.)

DHCP in ILG's would be good

I generally use my roommate's computer, and am logged in basically whenever I'm in the room. I use it for email, browsing the web, doing problem sets, writing papers, zephyring, etc. She has Linux. If I had a single, I'd have my own machine with probably a similar setup... but right now I don't have room for one and really don't need it.

I will be getting cable modem at home (Media One) next week and will soon be doing much more of my email and web browsing for leisure at home. I don't know if it is possible or not, but it would be great to someone how allow off-campus (ie. grad students in apts.) to connect their computer to the MIT network. There are several students in my lab including myself who are having problems with RSI. Since developing RSI problems, I have noticed how few athena terminals have keyboard trays. Also, many are configured such that the monitors are too high. Normally, I just move the monitor from on top of the computer to the desktop. But many computers are mounted directly in the center of the desktop and there is not enough room on either side to place the monitor. Anyway, I would suggest providing more keyboard trays. Also, it might be nice to post a message via zephyr periodically asking those who prefer not to use keyboard trays to try and leave the keyboard tray com! puters free for those who need them. (I often come in and all the keyboard tray computers are taken but no one is using the trays. At the same time, there are many computers without keyboard trays free.)

My lab computer is Athenized, and I included it in q14

bring better ventilation to clusters

I tend to use Athena only to check email and to find out things like where an event is happening that I'm late for. I think the QuickStations are more useful to me than the cluster machines (because of the problems getting a cluster machine for a session that'll last a few minutes at most). Since I started working at the Media Lab, I've had no reason to use Athena machines, since I can just go to work and get a machine. However, I used to use the student center machines (Quickstations particularly) more.

There should be more applications on athena. A decent word procecessor is missing and that is ridiculous it is silly for normal users to use framemaker or tex for simple word processing. What about Word perfect for unix? Also, applications should be kept more up to date. Right now I'm using netscape 3, when version 4 has been available for months. Realaudio? the athena version is so old that it won't read most clips. These changes would not be hard to implement and would significantly increase everybody's athena experience. Why is it that all the "cool" features appear to be hidden (like the use of alternate window managers adn exmh for email)?

I'd like to see a laser printer in the grad dorms. My friends tell me that Tether is too expensive and dialup access is too slow.

As a follow-up to the survey I submitted earlier, 6.111 does in fact have its software configured for use on Athena. However, students cannot actually program their EPROMS on Athena workstations. Sorry for the confusion.

The dialup service for people living off-campus is inadequate. It is often too slow. There should be free PPP/SLIP connections for all students. Now, many programs can only be used in school. In addition, there should be PC machines or capability to run standard PC software on campus without having to lug a notebook with you. The vast majority of the world uses Windows/DOS. It is a major pain to keep transferring files between different formats. UNIX word processors are primitive compared to PC based ones. Emacs belongs in the dark ages. There should at least be some provision for running a windows x-server that would allow athena software to be used on PCs. If I would subscribe to tether, then I would have a conflict about where to store mail. When at home, it would be on my PC, when at school, on athena. I could never search for all messages fitting some criterion at one time. These things need to be addressed.

I have found Athena to be very user UNfriendly and have never had the patience to get familiar with it. For end- users and non-computer scientists, the current Athena system is pretty frustrating. If I want to type up a report or something, I want access to a computer that has Microsoft Word or another modern commercial word processor. I definitely don't want to use EMACS, and even framemaker is not as convenient. And if I need to prepare a presentation, there is NO software available. I think MIT needs to diversify it's software and hardware offerings. While Athena has it's advantages in many applications, it has a lot of deficiencies that could be compensated for with a few macintosh or PC labs.

I am a grad student and live off campus. I consider my desktop computer to be at my home (that is, at my apartment; and not at school -- my office -- or my parents' home). Before returning to MIT for my Ph.D., I worked at a consulting firm and got an account with an ISP (sramming@world.std.com) for my personal use. I want to keep this account for after I graduate, so I find current Tether policies incredibly frustrating. I cannot afford to pay for both World and Tether, and since World offers PPP and a great newsfeed, the only advantage of Tether is secure telnet (oh, and the ability to go at half the speed of an X2 modem, instead of 1/4).

MIT should negotiate site licences for personal computers since many students choose to do their course work at home if they have the relevant software. Matlab and CAD programs come to mind. Also, Athena needs a software package for drawing electrical schematics. There was none when I took 6.111 last year so I had to find my own.

I think the idea of quickstations in the dorms is a good one, particularly for those dorms which are relatively far away from campus (Next, New, McGregor, Random) since while many people have computers of their own, many don't and don't have friends' computers to use. I know that more and more of my classes are using email and the web for assignments/class info and if people can't get that very often (cause I know that I at least don't have much time when I'm on campus to check my mail and I assume it's the same for lots of others) than they could be at a disadvantage when their professor writes them at 1 in the morning the night befor class saying they need to print something out for class that day. I think in the long run the ideal would be to have small clusters in the dorm (3-5) machines so that people when they have to work on problem sets until 5 in the morning can actually go and sleep in their own beds rather than in front of the computers or couches/benches ou! tside of the clusters. I know lots of people who regularly spend the whole night in the cluster and have to go right to class in the morning.

would like to have clusters in Tang Hall(Graduate Housing) for two reasons namely It is farthest from the main building and moreover graduate students are usually heavy users of athena clusters.

teams often need places to work together with computers available for all team members. a cluster provides that sort of thing. cluster computers have better hardware. especially, they have bigger (and usually better) monitors. I suppose they're not always faster these days. clusters computers often provide software not available for PCs. clusters often provide a better working environment than home. (i.e. less interruptions, especially if you kill zwgc :) Unix is better than NT.

I'd like access to an athena workstation at my ILG.

I have an athena workstation in my lab which I use about two hours a day for email and research. I also have a mac in my lab which I use for writing.