Contact

Mentors

Milestones

FAQ

Tech Help

Advice

Photos

RSI 2007 Home > Tech Help > Athena

Format for printing

Athena FAQ

1. I typed 'logout' and it says there are suspended jobs. What do I do?
2. How do I lock the screen?
3. How do I copy and paste?
4. Can I get Mathematica, Maple, or Matlab on Athena?
5. Is there a spreadsheet? Like Excel?
6. How do I access Athena remotely? Can I use telnet or ssh? How about ftp, sftp, or scp file transfer?
7. How do I run the program "foo" in locker "bar"?
8. How do I check how much disk space I have?
9. How do I eject a floppy?
10. How do I use floppy disks on Athena?
11. How about other media, like CD-ROMs?
12. How do I access a Zip disk on Athena?
13. How do I spellcheck my paper?
14. What's the name of that program that lets you see the people that are online?
15. How do I change my windowmanager?
16. Is there a way to load a program automatically when I login?
17. How do I change the volume on my workstation?
18. How do I compile a C program on Athena?
19. How do I compile a C++ program on Athena?
20. Is there a chemical modeller on Athena?
21. How do I access newsgroups (USENET)?
22. How do I kill a suspended job?
23. How do I find the number for a job?
24. What can I use to draw diagrams?
25. How can I look at Word documents?

1. I typed 'logout' and it says there are suspended jobs. What do I do?

To kill off all the suspended jobs and log out, type logout again.

If you want to know what the suspended jobs are, type jobs. You will see a listing like

[1]  - Suspended              su
[2]  + Suspended              netscape

[n] is the job number of the job. Type fg %n to foreground any job.

2. How do I lock the screen?

Type xss-button &, then click on the box that appears.

3. How do I copy and paste?

In most applications, select by highlighting with the left mouse button. Then, paste by clicking the middle mouse button.

4. Can I get Mathematica, Maple, or Matlab on Athena?

Yes, all available. Here's how:

athena% add math
athena% mathematica &
     
athena% add maple
athena% maple &
     
athena% add matlab
athena% matlab &

5. Is there a spreadsheet? Like Excel?

Xess, which provides many Excel-like functions, may be found in the menu: choose Math/Plotting, then Spreadsheets, then Xess. On Linux machines (e.g., the Dells at the front of m56-129) you can also use Gnumeric: say add gnumeric, then gnumeric &

6. How do I access Athena remotely? Can I use telnet or ssh? How about ftp, sftp, or scp file transfer?

Since telnet is not encrypted, MIT doesn't allow you to access Athena using telnet. You have to use ssh instead, which encrypts your connection and keeps your password secure.

Use the hostname athena.dialup.mit.edu or x.dialup.mit.edu if you want to have X forwarding enabled. You can go to this webpage if you don't have an ssh client on your remote computer.

To securely copy files between computers or networks, run scp username@hostname:foo/bar.txt ~/baz/ where username is your username on the remote computer and hostname is the computer name you want to access (athena.dialup.mit.edu if you are at work off campus). Be careful, because bar.txt will overwrite any file named bar.txt in your baz directory on the computer you're currently using. As with telnet, ftp is not secure and you can't access athena with telnet.

7. How do I run the program "foo" in locker "bar"?

athena% add bar
athena% foo

8. How do I check how much disk space I have?

athena% fs lq

9. How do I eject a floppy?

athena% eject floppy

10. How do I use floppy disks on athena?

To list the files on a floppy:

athena% add mtools
athena% mdir a:

To copy a file from the floppy to your Paper directory:

athena% add mtools
athena% mcopy a:filename ~/Paper

11. How about other media, like CD-ROMs?

As of July 2003, CD-ROM drives on Sun computers are malfunctioning. You should only use CD-ROM drives on Dell computers. On a Dell, the procedure is:

Put your CD in the drive.
Type mount /mnt/cdrom at your athena% prompt.
You can now access your CD files in the directory /mnt/cdrom.

When you are finished, make sure that none of your programs are using the CD and make sure your working directory is not within /mnt/cdrom.
Type umount /mnt/cdrom and then press the eject button on the drive.

12. How do I access a Zip disk on Athena?

Information on this is located in OLC Answers.

13. How do I spellcheck my paper?

athena% ispell -t paper.tex

14. What's the name of that program that lets you see the people that are online?

There are many programs that let you see who's online.

A text mode display can be run: athena% znol. znol will also send you a zephyr each time someone logs in or out. To suppress those, run athena% znol -l.
A graphical display of who is online can also be run:
```
athena% xzul &
```

15. How do I change my windowmanager?

See http://web.mit.edu/answers/xwindows/xwindows_newwm.html. The simple version is to add the following lines to your ~/.environment file:

add windowmanagers
setenv WINDOW_MANAGER foo

where foo is the desired window manager.

16. Is there a way to load a program automatically when I login?

Put it in .startup.X and .startup.sgi (if you're running the SGI setup, which is not by default). Don't forget to put an & after such commands

If you want the program to start when you are telnetting to Athena, put it in .startup.tty

17. How do I change the volume on my workstation?

On a Sun:

athena% add audio
athena% audiotool &

On an SGI: Use the little black triangular buttons on the casing.

18. How do I compile a C program on Athena?

You can use either cc or gcc depending on your personal preference:

athena% cc -o executablename source.c
athena% gcc -o executablename source.c

19. How do I compile a C++ program on Athena?

athena% g++ -o executablename source.c

20. Is there a chemical modeller on Athena?

Only on SGIs:

athena% add molsim
athena% quanta &

21. How do I access newsgroups (USENET)?

Run xrn (graphical), trn (text), or tin.

22. How do I kill a suspended job?

athena% kill %(jobnum)

23. How do I find the number for a job?

From the console where you started the job:

athena% jobs

24. What can I use to draw diagrams?

athena% xfig&

25. How can I look at Word documents?

You can try this:

Say
```
 mswordview filename.doc 
```
to your prompt. This should make a file filename.doc.html.
Open Netscape. Under the File menu, choose Open Page, then click the Choose File button. Select filename.doc.html and click OK, then Open in Navigator.

I am also told that FrameMaker can open Word files. To use it:

athena% add frame; frame &

Finally, you can use StarOffice by running:

athena% add soffice; soffice &