How do I .....

• Get details about a command:

  Try typing man command where command is the command you want help on. If you don't know the command name then try man -k command where command is something related to what you want to do.

• Find someone to help me!:

  Send mail to admin@phys.ufl.edu This is the best address to use as it will get to Brent, David, Bryan, and Matt so one of us will see the message and help you out. If you cannot email us then come to 2121, 2148 or 2253 and one of us will give you a hand.

• Login on an XTerminal:

  When you sit down at an xterminal in your office or in room 1212 you should see a welcome screen which asks for your username and password. Your username is the first chunk of your Physics email address, so if we told you that your email address is somebody@phys.ufl.edu then your username is somebody. Type the username in and then press the TAB button and type in your password. If you forget your password come to room 2121, 2148, or 2253 and ask us to reset it for you (bring picture ID).

• View a calendar that is stored on the netscape calendar server:

  Start the Netscape Calendar application, then:

  1. File
  2. Open Agenda
  3. An Agenda
  4. View the agenda of
  5. click on magnifying glass
  6. click on SEARCH
  7. chooose from the list

• Use an XTerminal once I login:

  As you may have noticed the XTerminals are not Windows or Macintosh PCs. Unix is the operating system used here, and X-Windows is the graphical interface to the operating system. If you click the mouse on the background area (not inside any window) then you will see a menu popup. If you want a terminal window where you can type commands click on the menu entry named XTerm. If you want to use Netscape, click on Info Tools then Netscape

• Read Email:

  The email program we use is named Pine. To use pine open an XTerminal and then type pine (lowercase) and press Enter. Once pine opens you will see some commands on the botton of the XTerm:

  ? Help       M Main Menu  P PrevMsg     - PrevPage    D Delete      R Reply
  O OTHER CMDS V ViewAttch  N NextMsg   Spc NextPage    U Undelete    F Forward

  As you move into different areas of Pine you will notice that the menu changes. If you ever need help you can always press the ? key. When you are finished using pine just press the q key and then type exit at the XTerminal prompt.

• Compile C/C++/F77 programs:

  When you compile programs on the system you should use the cc compiler with a Makefile. Here is a sample Makefile which will take all of your .c/.cc/.f files and compile them into .o files and then link them together: Makefile.txt

• Edit Files:

  There are several different editors available on the sytem. You can try opening an XTerminal and then typing:

  • nedit
  • pico
  • emacs
  • vi

  I listed these in reverse order of difficulty (my opinion only!)

• Using Netscape mail:

  Netscape Communicator has a mail program built into it. Before you can use it (in fact, before you can even click on a mailto link in a webpage) you have to tell it who you are. Open the Preferences dialog under the Edit menu and then click on the little triangle next to Mail and Newsgroups. Now click on Identity. Fill in your email address in the block labelled Email Address. Now click on Mail Servers and type in phys.ufl.edu as the incoming and outgoing mail server.

• Viewing PDF files:

  Use a program named acroread to view pdf's. To do this you would open an xterm and type acroread.

• Printing:

  There are postscript printers on the first floor (room 1212) and second floor (room 2120). These printers will print text files and postscript files. They will not print gif, jpg, jpeg, pdf or any other format. If you do send a file to the printer that is not text or postscript hundreds of pages of junk will be printed and the paper and toner will be wasted. To tell if a document is safe to print you can do this:

  file foo.bar

  If the output of that command is

  foo.bar: ascii text
  or
  foo.bar: PostScript document

  Then you are probably safe. The next check is to look at the file. If it is supposed to be ascii text:

  more foo.bar

  or postscript:

  ghostview foo.bar

  Now that you know the file is safe pick a printer that is near to you. To print a file in room 1212 open an xterminal and type

  lpr -P1212duplex foo.bar

  To print a file in room 2120 open an xterminal and type

  lpr -Pcdfduplex foo.bar

• Login on an XTerminal: