Welcome to the MultiLab!

Location: 203 EE ANNEX, 257-5256
Hours: Apprx. Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm (See Schedule).
Managed by the Computer Science Department
Hardware/Software maintenance: Paul Linton [pjl@cs.uky.edu]

Faculty in charge: Raphael Finkel

General information

The MultiLab is a collection of 30 computers originally purchased through a kind gift of IBM with matching funds from the College of Engineering. It has been upgraded a few times with funds from the College. This facility is intended for students in the Department of Computer Science taking classes that use the MultiLab's abilities. The computers are essentially identical general-purpose workstations. (29 Dell P4-2.8GHz; all with 40G disk, 256MB memory.) All can be booted to run Linux or Windows XP.

The appropriate operating system depends on what class you are taking and what software you need to run. Any of the operating systems can be used to generate a ssh window to other computers. Here is a simple table of software available under each operating system.

OS	Software

Linux	X windows
	Languages: C (gcc), C++ (g++), Perl, Tcl
	Text formatting: troff, LaTex
	Viewers: pdf (acroread, gv), dvi (xdvi)
	Browser: Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox, Opera

Windows XP	Languages: Visual C++ 2005 .NET, Java
	Office XP (Word, PowerPoint, Access, Excel, Photo Editor)
	Browser: Firefox, Internet Explorer
	Viewers: pdf (acroread)
	Mail: Thunderbird

Printing

If you have a MultiLab account, you can direct output from Windows XP applications to the printer in the MultiLab. Printing in the MultiLab is limited to one ream of paper per day. If you print lots of copies, others in the lab will be angry at you when they run out of paper later that day. Please limit your printing to necessary documents.

Guidelines

Access to all computers on campus is governed by the Policy Governing Access to and use of University of Kentucky Computing Resources.

Please do not leave your own files on the workstation. They are likely to disappear during machine maintenance, and cannot be accessed from any other workstation. Use your home directory (~ in Linux, Z: in WinXP) to save your files.

When you are finished, please do not turn off the computer. Please do switch off the monitor using the front switch, which puts the monitor in a power-save mode. When finished with XP, reboot so that the workstation will restart in Linux mode.

Some Common Procedures

To reboot to a different operating system:

If you are in Linux: Return to a text console if in X (Control-Alt-F1) and then press Control-Alt-Delete.

If you are in XP: Press Control-Alt-Delete and select Shutdown and Restart.

As the machine reboots, there will be a screen giving you a choice of operating systems.

To log into an operating system:

Linux: Log in with your usual name and password. You can start the X windows system with startx. When you are finished, you can exit X by (Control-Alt-Backspace) and then logout as usual (by typing exit, for instance).

Windows XP: Log in with your username and password. The username is the same as for Linux; the password may be different. The domain is MULTILAB, *not* the machinename. Your home directory will be mounted as Z:, and the shared program directory will be mounted as Y:. To log out, use Control-Alt-Delete to get a menu from which you can select logout.

To change your XP password:

You can change your password from XP by typing Control-Alt-Delete and choosing the change password option. Your password must be at least six characters and cannot be the same as a previous password.