Laptop Setup

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Follow the instructions here all the way to the end of the page!

Laptop setup and connection to Unix server

In order to set up your laptop you need to have an active and full (not temporary) UiO user account. If you do not have a UiO user account or if you have forgotten your user name or password, check here (unfortunately only in Norwegian) and/or contact one of the helpers/teachers. If at all possible, you should get your UiO user account sorted out before the first day of the course!

When you have a UiO user account, your password and you laptop with the WiFi turned on you can connect to the UiO wireless network. By the way, if you already are connected, you might still check the links below. You might learn something useful... If your computer has been set up by UiO, you should not change the WiFi settings.

Most likely you will use the Eduroam network, but you may also use the uio network. Use uioconfigwlan to get connected, as described here and if that does not work for you follow the instructions on the webpage. If you get stuck, ask some of the helpers/teachers.

Make sure you are actually connected to the web by opening https://wiki.uio.no/projects/clsi/MBV-INFX410_2015 in your web browser. Also check that you can read your e-mail.

You must have access to an administrator account on your computer. Do you have that? If not, make sure you get it (or tell Jon what the problem is...)

Check that you have Java running on your computer. Go to the Java website and click on "Do I have Java?" If you have (updated) Java, everything is fine. If not, you must follow the instructions and install/update Java.

Now we need to get you connected to a Unix computer. Everyone with a valid UiO user account already has a Unix account on the computer login.uio.no. Most likely this computer will be around for a long time, and in the future you can use this Unix server if you need one. Another possibility, that we will use for this present course, is to instead use the Unix server freebee.abel.uio.no.

How you connect, will depend on your laptop:

Linux laptop

You are already on a Unix machine, and most likely you know what you are doing. Open a terminal window and use ssh to log on to freebee.abel.uio.no

If you get stuck, ask one of the helpers/teachers

Mac laptop

Unless your Mac is more than 10 years old, it has an OS X operating system. This means you are already on a Unix machine. OS X is a Unix variant.

Launch the program "Terminal". Most likely you will find it in "Launchpad" under "Other" or in "Finder", "Applications", "Utilities". Then type, in the terminal,

ssh -l USERNAME freebee.abel.uio.no

or

ssh USERNAME@freebee.abel.uio.no

where USERNAME is your UiO user name. Answer "yes" to the stuff about "If you trust this host, ...". You should now be connected.

Under Unix, when you are typing in the password, the cursor does not move. This is normal and the computer is receiving your keystrokes, just not showing them on the screen.

If you get stuck, ask one of the helpers/teachers

Windows laptop installed with a UiO image (setup by USIT or Lokal IT at UiO)

Click on "Start" (lower, left hand corner on your desktop), choose "All Programs", and open the "PuTTY" directory. Double click on "PuTTY" to start the program. In the "PuTTY Configuration" you must type in the "Host name". Type "freebee.abel.uio.no", the name of the computer you want to log on to. Make sure "SSH" is ticked. If you also type "freebee.abel.uio.no" under "Saved Sessions" and click on "Save", you get a saved session. Double click on this and you open a terminal window. You will be asked for your UiO user name and password. Answer "yes" to the stuff about "authenticity". You should now be connected.

Under Unix, when you are typing in the password, the cursor does not move. This is normal and the computer is receiving your keystrokes, just not showing them on the screen.

If you get stuck, ask one of the helpers/teachers

Windows laptop not with a UiO setup

If you have PuTTY, or some other remote shell client installed, jump to the previous entry in this table and log on as described there.

If not, you need to install PuTTY. Download PuTTY from here. Choose the "Installer" version, just below "A Windows installer for everything except PuTTYtel" and use the latest version, that is 0.65).

If you are unsure about what to do or you are not comfortable installing software like this, talk to Jon or one of the other helpers/teachers.

Now run PuTTY and log in on freebee.abel.uio.no as described in the previous entry in this table.

The first time you log on to a new Unix computer you get messages like this:

"The authenticity of host "freebee.abel.uio.no" can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is 42:c0:1f:.." or "The server's host key is not cached in the registry. You have no..."

If you trust the machine, you click "yes". UiO computers are certainly trustworthy, so there is no problem here.

Now you are ready to start using Unix!

You should also get access to your UiO home area on your laptop. If you do not have that already, information about how to get that you will find here. Try it out!

For intructions on how to set up printing, check out this link.

You should have either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browser. If you do not have this yet, install by following the links.

For this course, you need the most recent version of the R statistics package installed on your laptop.

  • If you are working on a Windows laptop that has been set up by UiO local IT or USIT, open the directory P:\gratis\statistikk\r and double click on uioCurrentSetup.bat. Wait until R has been properly installed (a minute or two)
  • For all other computers, download and install R from a CRAN mirror site, for example from http://cran.uib.no

Run R and make sure it works, for example by trying this command:

pie(c(5,10,12), c("five","ten","twelve"), col=c("white","blue","red"))

This has been the "first exercise" of this course. Are you sure you would be able to set up a new laptop like this on your own now? If not, it is a good idea to go back and find out what you didn't actually understand.

Other useful links are to the UiO X-Win32 instructions, Trond Hasle Amundsens UiO guide to Linux and Unix, and in particular the overview webpages for UiO IT services. Unfortunately, the English webpages have much less useful linked information.