Linux Desktops Documentation¶

Welcome to the documentation for Linux Desktops at the University of Southampton

Desktop Manager¶

You can manage your desktop using the Desktop Manager tool. Log in to your desktop computer, open a web browser and go to the following location:

https://deskctl

You can also open the Desktop Manager tool within GNOME by press the Start button and searching for “Desktop Manager” and then selecting the resulting entry for the tool.

Desktop manager allows you to:

Install software, including University provided software
Manage permissions (change who can do what)
Check the status of backups
Start a backup on demand
Check the software update status
Check the health of the system
View the system hardware information
Open this documentation

Installing software¶

Desktop Manager¶

The recommended method for installing software is via the Desktop Manager tool. This tool contains specialist software, packages created by iSolutions, and all software specifically requested by members of the university. If a package is missing from it, and you think it should be listed, let us know!

GNOME Software¶

You can also use the GNOME Software tool to install software. It only includes graphical applications (GUI apps) and does not include specialist software or packages created by iSolutions.

It does however include most of the default GUI software in Red Hat Enterprise Linux so if you’re looking for a standard GUI application then GNOME Software will probably let you install it.

To start GNOME Software press the Start button and search for “Application Installer”.

yum¶

If you’re not afraid of the command line then the easiest and fastest way to install software is to use yum. You can search for software like this:

sudo yum search <name>

You can then install a package once you’ve found it like this:

sudo yum install <package-name>

Or remove a package:

sudo yum remove <package-name>

Backups¶

Your home directory is backed up automatically at least once a day.

When are backups taken?¶

Your workstation will attempt to back up all the data in /home between 11pm and 12am. If your computer is switched off at this time do not worry, the next time you start your computer a backup will be attempted then instead.

Do I need to keep my computer on overnight?¶

You do not need to leave your computer on overnight. If you prefer to keep your computer turned off then backups will still take place. Whenever your computer starts up it determines if a backup should be taken and then initiates a backup if required.

How long are backups kept for?¶

Backups of each workstation are kept for 30 days after the backup was taken.

If your machine is not switched on, or otherwise unavailable, for 30 days, then all backup data will be deleted. To ensure you always have a copy of data in case of hardware failure please ensure your computer takes at least one backup a month.

How can I check the backups are working?¶

You can use Desktop Manager to check the status of the last backup attempt.

You can also run the following command in a terminal:

sudo drone backup status

Can I trigger a backup?¶

Yes you can start a backup whenever you need to. This allows you, for example, to take a backup before turning your computer off before leaving the office. You can start a backup using Desktop Manager or if you prefer you can run the following command in a terminal:

sudo drone backup now

Can I use my PC whilst a backup is underway?¶

Yes. The backup system takes a snapshot of the data when the process begins and backs up the data in the snapshot. You can thus carry on using your computer without affecting the backup (or the backup affecting your data). The backup system uses LVM thin snapshots to accomplish this.

Do backups work when outside the University network?¶

For the backups to work you must connect to the University network via one of these methods:

Connect to the university network via an Ethernet cable
Connect to the eduroam wireless network
Connect to the university virtual private network (VPN) service

Can backups be disabled?¶

In very rare circumstances iSolutions will disable backups on a workstation.

To do this, you need to be a member of iSolutions staff with root access, and you run the following command to do so:

sudo drone backup disable

Backups can be then enabled again at a later date with:

sudo drone backup enable

Local storage¶

Your home directory¶

Location: /home/$username/
Backed up: Yes

Your home directory is stored on the computer’s local drive. This data is backed up every day - see Backups for details. You are not limited by a quota but the /home partition/drive is only 50GB in size. If you expect your computer to be used by multiple people please be considerate and don’t use all the space on the partition.

You can check the usage of the drive in Desktop Manager

Local scratch space¶

Location: /local/scratch/$username/
Backed up: No

If you need space for large amounts of data you should store this within your local scratch space. This space is however not backed up, so don’t store anything important there!

The scratch space is stored within the /local partition, thus this is only limited by the size of the drive within your computer.

You can check the usage of the drive in Desktop Manager

Other locations¶

Some computers have multiple drives installed, in which case an iSolutions technician will have set up the second drive at /data. Directories are not automatically created within this location. Any data stored there is not backed up.

Network storage¶

Available locations¶

There are several storage systems available to connect to on the University network:

Personal Filestore (via SSH)¶

Location: sftp://ssh.soton.ac.uk/home/$username/
Protocol: SSH/SFTP
Linux friendly semantics: Yes

This is your central university storage or ‘filestore’. Data stored here is backed up and available on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X computers. You can also access data stored here via Filestore Web Access.

Personal Filestore (via SMB)¶

Location: sftp://ssh.soton.ac.uk/home/$username/
Protocol: SMB1, SMB2
Linux friendly semantics: No

You can also access your personal filestore via the SMB protocol (the Windows file sharing protocol). If you connect via this method then you will not be able to set or view file/directory permissions, create symbolic links or use any other POSIX (Linux/UNIX) features. Due to this it is strongly recommended that you utilise SSH instead.

Linux Shared Filestore¶

Location: sftp://ssh.soton.ac.uk/research/$groupname/
Protocol: SSH/SFTP
Linux friendly semantics: Yes

Many research groups and departments have access to shared storage locations specifically designed for use from Linux systems. These are available at the above location. Data stored here is backed up. You can also access data stored here via Filestore Web Access.

Other Shared Filestore¶

Location: smb://filestore.soton.ac.uk/$sharename/
Protocol: SMB1, SMB2
Linux friendly semantics: No

Many other shared locations exist, such as the “J: drive” shared storage locations. These are available at the above location. Data stored here is backed up. You can also access data stored here via Filestore Web Access.

These locations are unfortunately designed for use by Windows users. You will not be able to set or view file/directory permissions, create symbolic links or use any other POSIX (Linux/UNIX) features.

How to connect¶

There are various methods of connecting to network storage:

via the file browser¶

If you’re using GNOME (the default), XFCE, MATE or KDE then you can simply open the file browser and enter the location you want to connect to by pressing Ctrl+L or clicking Connect to server in the menu. You will be prompted for a username and password as necessary.

We strongly recommend you use this mechanism to connect to network storage. You can also access the connected storage from other applications and the command line. Once connected they are available via the normal file system here:

/run/user/$uid/gvfs/

via FUSE (SSH only)¶

If you prefer to connect to networked storage on the command line only, you can do so using the sshfs command. We strongly recommend you use the above mechanism (the file browser) instead since that can also be accessed from the command line.

If you do want to use sshfs directly then run the command like so:

sshfs [user@]host:[dir] mountpoint

For example, here is how to connect to your personal filestore as testuser:

mkdir ~/personalfs
sshfs testuser@ssh.soton.ac.uk:/home/testuser/ ~/personalfs

You can then later disconnect with:

fusermount -u ~/personalfs

via the `mount` command¶

You can also instruct the kernel to mount network storage if you desire. This can however be quite complicated and this documentation only covers the basics.

You can use the mount command via sudo if you are in the sys group (see Permissions for more information). You can thus use the command like so:

sudo mount <options>

Here is an example of how to mount personal filestore via the cifs driver with the example username testuser:

mkdir ~/personalfs
sudo mount -t cifs -o username=testuser,password=<password>,domain=soton.ac.uk //filestore.soton.ac.uk/users/testuser/ /home/testuser/personalfs/

Printing¶

The university uses a ‘follow me’ printing service where you can submit a print job from your desktop and then print from any multi-function printer (MFD) on the university network.

There are two default printer queues set up for this on your Linux desktop which you can use ‘out of the box’. The queues are called mono and colour. The first time you print to either of them you will be prompted to enter your university username and password. Sadly owing to limitations in CUPS (the Linux printing system) we cannot automatically authenticate you. Instead you can opt to save your username and password, and the password is stored in your GNOME keyring (where it is encrypted).

If you have administrator rights granted to you on your desktop (i.e. you are in the sys group), you can add and edit printers. You may want to add a new printer if you are in a lab which has a printer other than the normal University MFDs.

To add such a printer:

Open the GNOME Settings application (Applications -> System Tools -> Settings) and then choose Printers. Note that you may also find Print Settings, which is a separate method of adding a printer and not documented here.
Choose Unlock and, if prompted, enter your username and password to authenticate.
Next, click the plus (+) button that’s underneath the list of printers and the Add a New Printer dialog will appear.
In the text box at the bottom of the dialog, enter: smb://servername/, where servername should be listed on the label on the printer you wish to add. servername will often be something like server1.printing.soton.ac.uk.
As you enter this you will be prompted to authenticate to the print server, after which, you should be given a list of printers.
Double-click on your printer from the list - it should match the name that is on the label on the printer, e.g. PR_B12_R3456_P01
Next, the Select Printer Driver dialog should appear. Choose Generic from the list on the left and then Generic PostScript Printer from the list on the right.
Press the Select button.
The printer is now added to the system, and you should now be able to print to it
Note that you can’t set a system-wide default printer here as that is managed by system policy (and if you manage to change it, it will get reverted), however you can change the default printer for your account on your desktop using the documentation below.

To change the default printer:

Open the Print Settings application
Right-click the printer you wish to make the default for you
Choose Set as Default from the menu
Choose Set as my personal default printer
Click OK

E-Mail¶

At present, the univerity’s e-mail solution is Microsoft Exchange for most staff and Office 365 for students.

Using Outlook web access¶

The easiest way to access your e-mail (and calendars and contacts) is to use Outlook web access:

Staff and postgraduates: www.outlook.soton.ac.uk
Students: www.outlook.com/soton.ac.uk

Using GNOME / Evolution¶

The next easiest way to access your e-mail (and contacts) is to use the e-mail client in GNOME - evolution. The fastest way to set it up is to open Settings and click Online Accounts.

Click “Add an online account”
Choose “Microsoft Exchange”
Enter the E-Mail as yourusername@soton.ac.uk
Enter your normal university password

Open Evolution and your e-mail account will have automatically been created.

Using other clients¶

If you decide to use another e-mail client you’ll likely want to use IMAP and SMTP for sending and receiving e-mails. The support in Microsoft Exchange for IMAP clients is very poor however (performance is appauling and the IMAP server is not very compliant to the RFC - surprising, no?). We thus recommend either using Outlook Web Access or Evolution, but if you really do want to take the plunge, here are the details:

IMAP server: imap.exchange.soton.ac.uk
IMAP security: SSL/TLS (port 993)
SMTP server: smtp.soton.ac.uk
SMTP security: STARTTLS (port 25)

Installation¶

Note

To install the University Linux Desktop system you need to be a member of iSolutions staff (i.e. in the ‘jfStaff’ group). We are working on a way for anybody to install Linux desktops, but this is not yet available.

Before you begin¶

Ensure that no USB hard drives or thumb drives are attached
Ensure that no non-standard devices are attached by USB or otherwise
Check for second or third hard drives. These should not be wiped, but if they contain data customers want, best practice is to disconnect them first.
Make sure the PC is set to BIOS mode (not UEFI)
Ensure Hybrid graphics are disabled, if offered

Start the installation¶

Turn the computer on and select network boot (PXE boot) as it starts. When prompted, press F12 to start the network installation system:

The network build menu should then appear, choose Linux:

and then on the next menu choose Linux desktops:

Finally, choose Linux Desktop 7:

You will be prompted for the Linux build password:

If the build starts you’ll see a loading screen like this one:

Followed by the Red Hat installer running automatically:

The installation will take between 10 and 20 minutes. During this time you don’t need to watch the computer, its fully automatic.

University installer¶

Once the Red Hat installer is finished the system will reboot and it will display a message telling you that the University installer has started and is ready to be used:

Press any key to start the installer and then enter the computer name if it was not automatically detected:

You then need to enter your university username and password. The account must be within the jfStaff group - so don’t use adm accounts, use your normal account.:

The University installer will then complete all its tasks automatically without requiring any further input. It can take between 5 and 15 minutes for this to finish, dependening on the speed of the hard drive:

Once complete the installer will show “all done” and you can restart to use the new Linux desktop by pressing any key:

Post-installation tasks¶

Once the system has rebooted you might want to grant additional permissions to the user for whom you built the workstation for. To do so, logon to the system and use Desktop Manager to change Permissions. Your account must be within the linuxadm or linuxsys Linux groups to do this.

Migration Guide¶

Note

This guide is intended for iSolutions staff only.

Introduction¶

This guide is intended to assist you migrating a customer’s workstation from either RHEL5 or RHEL6 to our current RHEL7 platform. Before you start, you should make sure that you have a USB disk with no data on it that you can use to store data on the customer wishes to keep.

Migration outline¶

Check for non-backed up data in /local/scratch/
Copy data from /home/ to the USB drive
Copy data from /local/scratch/ to the USB drive
Check for secondary hard drives in the system
Disconnect any secondary hard drives
Install RHEL7
Reconnect secondary hard drives
Set up secondary hard drives to be automatically mounted
Copy data back from the USB drive to /local/scratch/
Copy data back from the USB drive to /home/
Copy home directory data back

Check for non-backed up data in /local/scratch/¶

Users will probably want you to back up the data that is in /local/scratch/ on the workstation. Although this data is not backed up normally, and is ‘scratch’ space we will still back it up to make things easier.

Ask the user if they have data they wish to keep in /local/scratch, and check if there is any other user data in /local/scratch/ as well. If there is, it makes sense to back it up.

Do not check for data in /data - this is likely a second hard drive, which we will come onto later.

Attach the USB disk¶

Ask the user to log out of the system and ensure nobody else is logged in. Then login on the console and gain root. To switch to the console type Ctrl+Alt+F3.

Now plug in the USB disk you’re going to use to store data on during the migration. You should then run the command lsscsi to list the attached storage devices. If lsscsi is not installed, installed it with:

yum install lsscsi

You can then run it like so:

lsscsi

And you should get an output somewhat similar to this:

[0:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      KINGSTON SA400S3 71E0  /dev/sda
[1:0:0:0]    cd/dvd  TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224BB  SB00  /dev/sr0
[2:0:0:0]    disk    Seagate  Expansion        9300  /dev/sdb

As you can see from the above, the USB drive (in this case a Seagate USB drive) is listed and it is available at the path /dev/sdb. If you’ve already set up the disk to be used by Linux systems then you can go ahead and mount the drive. We’ll create a place to mount it:

mkdir /mnt/migrate

And then mount it:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/migrate

Copy data¶

Now you’ll want to use rsync to copy the data from the local system to the USB hard drive. We’ll run it twice, once for /home and the second time for /local/scratch/. Here are the commands you’ll want to run:

rsync -av --progress /home/ /mnt/migrate/home/
rsync -av --progress /local/scratch/ /mnt/migrate/scratch/

You can run these commands again to make sure all changes have been copied as they ‘mirror’ the data and only copy changes as needed. These commands will likely take a long time to run dependent on the speed of the hard drives and the amount of data.

Secondary hard drives¶

Sometimes a workstation will have a second or even a third physical disk installed. We don’t have to back up this data as the installation for RHEL7 won’t touch these disks - the data will be retained. However, it is best practice to disconnect these drives ‘just in case’. If its easy to open the case and disconnect secondary hard drives, do so (when the power is off of course!) so as to prevent any chance of data on these disks from being lost.

Make a note as to how many of these drives there are, and where they are currently mounted. You can get a list of physical drives with lsscsi:

lsscsi

and you can get a list of mounted partitions with df:

df -h

This will let you figure out what drives are there, and what mount points to add once you’ve installed RHEL7. Make sure to write down the full path to the disk, e.g. it will probably be /dev/sdb1 for the device path. You’ll also want to make sure you write down the file system type, hopefully it will be ext4.

Install RHEL7¶

Once you’ve done the above steps, power the machine off, and unplug the USB hard disk. Then power it back on and follow the Installation guide.

Reconnect secondary hard drives¶

Once you’ve installed RHEL7 you should power the machine off again and reconnect any hard drives you previously disconnected. You can then power the machine back on and reconnect them. Log in and gain root, and then find a list of the new drives:

lsscsi

You should then re-create the directories where you want to mount the drives. In nearly all cases this will be /data so just run:

mkdir /data

Now you’ll need to edit the file system tab (fstab) to add a record so the drive is mounted at startup. Edit /etc/fstab in the editor of your choice and add the following:

/dev/sdb1 /data ext4 defaults 0 0

Change this line to match what you need it to - .e.g change /dev/sdb to be the device path you wrote down in the earlier steps. Change /data to be wherever the disk should be mounted. And change ext4 to whatever file system is in use (and you wrote down earlier). In nearly all cases though you probably won’t need to change anything.

Once that is done, save and exit the file, and run:

mount -a

Now check the disk is mounted:

df -h

Copy data back¶

The last step is to copy data back onto the workstation. You’ll have to plug in the USB drive in again, and then work out what it got attached as:

lsscsi

And you should get an output somewhat similar to this:

[0:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      KINGSTON SA400S3 71E0  /dev/sda
[1:0:0:0]    cd/dvd  TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224BB  SB00  /dev/sr0
[2:0:0:0]    disk    Seagate  Expansion        9300  /dev/sdb

As you can see from the above, the USB drive (in this case a Seagate USB drive) is listed and it is available at the path /dev/sdb. Create the place we’ll mount it:

mkdir /mnt/migrate

And then mount it:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/migrate

Now we can copy data back. Start with the /local/scratch/ directory and use rsync again to copy back:

rsync -av –progress /mnt/migrate/scratch/ /local/scratch/

You can then recover the /home directory data. You probably should not recover the data directly though. In most cases, users will be moving from GNOME 2 to GNOME 3, and starting with a fresh home directory makes more sense. If a user insists they want their original home directory, feel free to restore it, but it can lead to problems, and so you should recommend that they do not.

Either restore the data into /local/scratch/home/ like so:

rsync -av --progress /mnt/migrate/home/ /local/scratch/home/

Or restore individual directories for users (not recommended):

rsync -av –progress /mnt/migrate/home/<username>/ /home/<username/

Permissions¶

Standard permissions¶

All members of the University of Southampton can log on to any Linux Desktop. Once logged in you are granted all normal Linux account rights, and in addition you may perform the following actions:

Can install software packages via Desktop Manager
Can install software packages via GNOME Software
Can mount and umount file systems via sudo mount (See Network storage)
Mount a file systems via GNOME disk management
Can manage NVIDIA graphics settings via sudo nvidia-settings
Can reboot/poweroff/hibernate/suspend the computer
Can run the following commands: reboot, poweroff, halt
Can start a backup with sudo drone backup now
Can check the backup status with sudo drone backup status

Additional permissions¶

There are four user groups on each workstation which grant additional privileges:

SSH Access¶

Users in the group users are granted the privilege of being able to logon to the system via SSH from anywhere within the university network.

Administrator¶

Users in the group sys are considered administrators. Although they lack full root access they are granted several privileges. They can use sudo to run the following commands as root:

yum - for installing software packages
rpm - for installing local RPM packages
pip - for installing Python packages
cpan - for installing Perl modules
gem - for installing Ruby gems (packages)

They are also granted permissions via PolicyKit to do the following:

Manage local storage via GNOME disks (or any udisks2 application)
Full control over power management
Change locale settings
Remove software packages
Update the system software
Trigger an offline system update
Manage the date and/or time
Manage printers (including adding printers)
Manage the network settings
Manage tuned
Reinstall the VirtualBox kernel module (See Virtualisation)
Set the default version of java/javac (See Java)

iSolutions are more than happy to grant additional privileges to these users upon request.

Virtual Box¶

Users in the vboxusers group can utilise USB devices in Virtual Box and can reinstall the VirtualBox kernel module.

Root access¶

Users in the wheel group are granted full root access via sudo and are granted all privileges via policykit. Only members of iSolutions can grant access to this group and is done so rarely.

Granting permissions¶

You can use Desktop Manager to add and remove users from groups. Local administrators (users in the group sys) can add and remove users from the following groups:

SSH access (users)
Administrators (sys)
VirtualBox users (vboxusers)

Only iSolutions staff in the linuxadm or linuxsys groups can add or remove users from the wheel group.

Remote access¶

SSH¶

You can connect to your Linux desktop via the SSH protocol. To do so your user account needs to be in the users group. Read the Permissions page for more details about permissions, or use Desktop Manager to add yourself to the SSH group.

The address to connect to will be of the form:

uos-NNNNN.clients.soton.ac.uk

If you don’t know what your computer’s “UOS” number is, you can find out by either opening Desktop Manager or by opening a terminal and typing:

hostname

For example if your computers UOS name were uos-57292 you would connect to the address uos-57292.clients.soton.ac.uk. You can then login with your normal university username and password.

Desktop environments¶

GNOME 3¶

GNOME 3 is the default desktop environment on university Linux desktops. It is the most feature complete and useful desktop and as such as we highly recommend using it.

GNOME 3, like many recent desktop environments, does not use the classic Windows style task bar model, or the Mac OS X style dock model. It can however be heavily customised by the GNOME Tweak Tool and GNOME Extensions.

Xfce 4¶

XFCE is a lightweight alternative to GNOME, whilst still utilising a lot of the core components of GNOME. It can be heavily customised and is considered a more traditional desktop environment. If you do not like GNOME 3 then we recommend using XFCE instead.

You can use Desktop Manager to install XFCE, or use the following command in a terminal:

sudo yum groupinstall xfce-desktop

KDE Plasma¶

KDE Plasma is the latest version of the K Desktop Environment, an alternative desktop platform based on the Qt framework. Unlike KDE 3, the KDE Plasma environment is not well regarded, and it lacks a lot of features and maturity of both GNOME and XFCE. Although available to install we do not recommend using KDE Plasma.

You can use Desktop Manager to install KDE, or use the following command in a terminal:

sudo yum groupinstall kde-desktop-environment

MATE¶

MATE is a fork of the GNOME 2 project, and as such it is essentially an updated GNOME 2 desktop environment. If you liked GNOME 2, and wish to continue using it, then MATE may suit you. The latest version of MATE - 1.16 - is available and despite being based on GNOME 2 has been largely rewritten in GTK3.

You can use Desktop Manager to install MATE, or use the following command in a terminal:

sudo yum groupinstall kde-desktop-environment

i3¶

i3 is a tiling window manager similar to wmii. It is not a full desktop environment and it is intended for advanced users. Unless you have experience with ultra lightweight tiling window managers we do not recommend using i3.

You can use Desktop Manager to install i3, or use the following command in a terminal:

sudo yum install i3

Others¶

Several other desktops are available:

Cinnamon: sudo yum install cinnamon-desktop
LXDE / LXQt: sudo yum install lxqt-session lxqt-panel lxqt-config lxqt-powermanagement lxqt-wallet lxqt-policykit

Several other window managers are available:

xmonad: sudo yum install xmonad
fluxbox: sudo yum install fluxbox
openbox: sudo yum install openbox
IceWM: sudo yum install icewm
Matchbox: sudo yum install matchbox-window-manager
WindowMaker: sudo yum install WindowMaker
spectrwm: sudo yum install spectrwm
fvwm: sudo yum install fvwm
pekwm: sudo yum install pekwm
vtwm: sudo yum install vtwm

Virtualisation¶

VirtualBox¶

iSolutions recommends the use of VirtualBox for creating and running virtual machines on the linux desktop platform. VirtualBox is designed for a multi user environment, unlike KVM/libvirt which runs everything as root.

You can install the latest VirtualBox with the following command:

sudo yum install VirtualBox-5.1

Older versions are available but we recommend you install the latest.

Once installed you can start VirtualBox and start creating virtual machines straight away! We recommend you store your virtual machine disks in the /local/scratch/<username/ directory - see Local storage for more info.

Rebuilding the kernel module¶

After a kernel update is installed you might find that VirtualBox no longer works and generates an error similar to Kernel driver not installed. To fix this you must run the following command in a terminal:

sudo /usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxdrv.sh setup

To run the above command you must be in the sys or vboxusers group. See Permissions for more information.

VirtualBox user group¶

In previous versions of VirtualBox anybody who wanted to use the software had to be in the vboxusers group. This is no longer the case and membership of this group is only required if:

You want to be able to rebuild the kernel module without being in sys
You want to be able to use USB passthrough devices

See Permissions for more information.

Firewall¶

From RHEL7 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 7) onwards you can now manage the firewall of your workstation provided you are a member of the sys users group. See Permissions for further information on groups.

The firewall is managed by the firewalld utility. To manage the firewall you need to start the graphical tool “Firewall Config”. You can then use this GUI tool to make changes.

Please only make changes to the firewall if absolutley necessary. The defaults are probably all you need.

GNOME Extensions¶

GNOME 3 features a unique extension system which allows you to install various add on packages within GNOME. These extensions can be used to fix a lot of the behaviour of GNOME 3 that many people do not like.

When you first login to a RHEL7 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 7) desktop you will be logged into ‘GNOME Classic’ which is GNOME 3 with a lot of extra GNOME extensions.

Finding and installing extensions¶

Open the Firefox web browser and navigate to extensions.gnome.org

The website itself is used to find and install extensions.

Once installed you can open the GNOME Tweak Tool to configure extensions.

Recommended extensions¶

iSolutions recommend the following extensions which will enhance GNOME 3:

For laptops:

Environment modules system¶

Most of the scientific and research software provided by iSolutions uses the environment modules system. Most if not all of the software on the IRIDIS super computer also uses the environment module system.

The modules system is a way to dynamically alter your environment (e.g. variables in your terminal session) in a ‘modular’ way. An application specifies a ‘module file’ which contains code to modify the shell so that the application works. You can then ‘load’ the module which uses the module file.

How to load a module¶

First you have to install some software which makes use of the modules system, for example you could install PyPy 5.6:

sudo yum install pypy256

Once the package is installed you can switch into the module like so:

module load pypy/5.6

Once loaded you can use the pypy binary directly.

How to unload a module¶

Just replace module load with module unload:

module unload pypy/5.6

List available modules¶

You can list all the modules installed with:

module avail

Show the help for the module¶

Each module should have some help text, use this command to show it:

module help pypy/5.6

List loaded modules¶

You can list the modules in use right now type:

module list

Software collections (SCL)¶

Sofware collections - or SCL - is a collection of ‘add-on’ software packages created and maintained by Red Hat. They were created in order to deliver more up to date versions of software to customers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux which typically does not update software “mid-life” of a product. Via SCL Red Hat is able to provide more recent stable versions of software for customers to use without affecting the stability and security of the base product.

Due to our education licence all SCL software is available to users of our linux desktops. More information about all the available packages can be found on the dedicated software collections website.

How to install SCL packages¶

SCL packages are normal rpm software packages and thus can be installed via the usual tools, see Installing software for more information. Typically the SCL packages will contain ‘rh’ in the name, but not all do.

How to use SCL packages¶

Once you have installed an SCL package you must first ‘enable’ its use and run a program with the package enabled. For example:

scl enable rh-python35 bash

This ‘enables’ the rh-python35 package (Python 3.5) and then runs the command bash. The bash command is started with some environment variables changed so that the SCL software is then available, in a similar way to how Environment modules system work.

You can also enable two or more environments at the same time like so:

scl enable sclone scltwo bash

In the above example both sclone and scltwo are enabled.

Using SCL without the `scl` command¶

Unlike the environment modules system the binaries of the programs do not have a PREFIX set so they can locate shared libraries (shared/dynamic objects) without setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable. This is set automatically by the scl enable command.

You can however source a script instead of having to use the scl command. Each SCL package is installed into opt:

/opt/rh/<package-name>/

Within that directory there is a script named enable which you can source:

source /opt/rh/<package-name>/enable

For example this is how to source Python 3.5:

source /opt/rh/rh-python35/enable

Python¶

Python is a popular and versatile programming language used in many scientific disciplines across the university. It is by far the most popular language in use by staff at Southampton and is the most used tool on Windows desktops too!

The university Linux desktop platform has a large number of Python implementations for you to choose from. We’ve worked hard to try to provide the options you might need and granted you the privileges needed to install packages as required.

Note

To install python modules via sudo pip you need to be in the Administrators group. See Permissions for more information. You don’t need to be in this group to use the conda command. You can also use pip directly, without sudo, and install packages in your home directory.

List of available implementations¶

CPython
- RHEL system python - 2.7.5
- Miniconda (Anaconda) - 2.7, 3.6
- IUS packages - 3.4.6, 3.5.3, 3.6.0
- SCL packages - 2.7.8, 3.3.2, 3.4.2, 3.5.1
- EPEL package - 3.4.5
PyPy
- PyPy 5.6 - 2.7.12
- PyPy3 5.5-alpha - 3.3
Jython
- SCL Jython 2.7

You can use Desktop Manager to install the various options, or read below for the yum commands to use instead.

Which implementation should I use?¶

If you want to use Python 2, and you don’t need conda packages, then use the RHEL system Python, and use pip to install packages.
If you want to use Python 3, and you don’t need conda pacakges, then use the IUS Python 3.6 package and use pip3.6m to install pacakges
If you need conda packages (Anaconda Python packages) then use miniconda

RHEL system Python¶

Unless you need Python 3 or conda packages then we recommend you use the system python in /usr/bin/python. This is supported by Red Hat and kept up to date with security and bug fixes.

You can install packages by running sudo pip eg:

sudo pip install numpy

IUS Python¶

The IUS repository provides Python 3 packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. If you need to use Python 3 then we recommend you use the IUS Python packages. Several versions are available for install:

Python 3.4 - sudo yum install python34u python34u-pip
Python 3.5 - sudo yum install python35u python35u-pip
Python 3.6 - sudo yum install python36u python36u-pip

You can then use Python via the following paths to the binary:

Python 3.4 - /usr/bin/python3.4
Python 3.5 - /usr/bin/python3.5
Python 3.6 - /usr/bin/python3.6

The version of Python in /usr/bin/python3 depends on the order the IUS packages are installed, so we don’t recommend you use that path.

You can install packages via sudo pip:

Python 3.4 - sudo pip3.4
Python 3.5 - sudo pip3.5
Python 3.6 - sudo pip3.6

For example, to install numpy on IUS Python 3.6:

sudo pip3.6 install numpy

PyPy¶

PyPy is a just-in-time (JIT) compiler for Python which aims to be compatible with the standard CPython implementation. Using PyPy often yields significant performance benefits.

To install PyPy run the following command:

sudo yum install pypy256

This installs PyPy 5.6 which is compatible with CPython 2.7.12.

To install PyPy3 run the following command:

sudo yum install pypy3355

This installs PyPy3 5.5-alpha which is compatible with CPython 3.3.5.

To run PyPy you can either use the following paths:

/usr/bin/pypy56 - PyPy 5.6 (Python 2.7.12)
/usr/bin/pypy3355 - PyPy 5.5-alpha (Python 3.3.5)

Or you can use the module system:

module load pypy/5.6 - PyPy 5.6 (Python 2.7.12)
module load pypy/3.3-5.5 - PyPy 5.5-alpha (Python 3.3.5)

Once you’ve loaded the module you can use the pypy command directly and it will correspond to the version of pypy you chose to load.

You can install packages with pip:

sudo /local/software/pypy/5.6/bin/pip - PyPy 5.6 (Python 2.7.12)
sudo /local/software/pypy/3.3-5.5/bin/pip3 - PyPy 5.5-alpha (Python 3.3.5)

For example, to install numpy on PyPy 5.6:

sudo /local/software/pypy/5.6/bin/pip install numpy

Miniconda (Anaconda)¶

Anaconda, and its conda package manager, is an alternative to the pip package manager (although the developers insist it complements pip and solves different problems).

Anaconda, conda and miniconda are not designed for “system-wide” use, they are intended for individual users to download and install for just that one user. Better multi user support is planned, but as of March 2017, is not yet available.

To use conda you don’t need to download and install Anaconda or miniconda yourself, instead you can get started by installing miniconda which just contains conda and python:

sudo yum install miniconda

Once installed you can use conda to create a new environment within your home directory with whatever version of Python and whichever Python packages you need.

You should start by creating an environment, e.g:

conda create -n yourenvname python=x.x

You specify the version of python you want with the python=x.x flag, but this is optional and if omitted conda will use the version of Python shipped with miniconda which at the time of writing is Python 3.6.0.

You can specify at creation time the packages you want installed. For example, to install the entire anaconda set of packages you can do the following:

conda create -n yourenvname python=3.6 anaconda

You can then use your new environment like so:

source activate yourenvname

And you can then stop using it like so:

source deactivate

You can install additional packages with conda:

conda install -n yourenvname [package]

And if you want to delete an environment do the following:

conda remove -n yourenvname -all

SCL Python¶

Note

The SCL python33 package conflicts with the IUS Python packages. You cannot have both versions installed at the same time. To install the SCL python33 package you must first remove the IUS Python packages. In any case we strongly recommend you use the IUS packages rather than SCL.

Red Hat provides several CPython packages as part of its “Software Collections” system. These packages are generally older than the IUS packages and are more difficult to use - they require the use of the scl command. At the time of writing the following versions are available:

Python 2.7.8 - sudo yum install python27 python27-python-pip
Python 3.3.2 - sudo yum install python33
Python 3.4.2 - sudo yum install rh-python34 rh-python34-python-pip
Python 3.5.1 - sudo yum install rh-python35 rh-python35-python-pip

Once installed you can’t use python until you use the scl command which is somewhat like the environment module system:

Python 2.7.8 - scl enable python27 bash
Python 3.3.2 - scl enable python33 bash
Python 3.4.2 - scl enable rh-python34 bash
Python 3.5.1 - scl enable rh-python34 bash

Once you’ve run the scl command then the python command will now be the version of Python you requested. The pip command will also be updated for the SCL python, but it won’t work unless you use a special sclsudo command we’ve created. So to install packages you should run:

sclsudo pip install numpy

EPEL Python¶

Note

The EPEL python 3.4 package conflicts with the IUS Python 3.4 package. You cannot have both versions installed at the same time. To install the EPEL python you must first remove the IUS Python 3.4 packages. In any case we strongly recommend you use the IUS packages rather than EPEL.

Another alternative Python 3 package is provided by :doc`epel`. We recommend that you use the IUS packages instead since the EPEL Python package is now quite out of date. If you do want to use it, install it like so:

sudo yum install python34 python34-pip

You can then use the package with the binary path:

/usr/bin/python3.4

and you can install packages with pip:

sudo /usr/bin/pip3.4 install numpy

Jython¶

Jython is an implementation of Python running on the Java virtual machine (JVM). Red Hat have provided a packaged version of Jython as part of their Developer Toolset 4 product. To install it run this command:

sudo yum install devtoolset-4 devtoolset-4-jython

Then run the scl command to enable it:

scl enable devtoolset-4 bash

You can then run jython directly:

jython

C and C++¶

C is a general-purpose, low level, imperative computer programming language, supporting structured programming, lexical variable scope and recursion, while a static type system prevents many unintended operations. C++ is an extension of C with object-oriented features and a much larger standard library.

List of compilers¶

Several C and C++ compilers are available on the Linux desktop platform:

GCC (GNU compiler collection)
- v4.8 - Red Hat’s built in GCC
- v4.9 - part of RHDT 3
- v5.3 - part of RHDT 4
- v6.2 - part of RHDT 6
ICC/ICPC (Intel compiler suite)
- 2017 Update 2
Clang (LLVM C/C++ compiler)
- v4.0.0
- v3.9.1
- v3.4.2 from the EPEL project
PGI (NVIDIA Portland Group Compiler Suite)
- 17.1

GCC¶

Several versions of GCC are available. The system gcc - the one used to build Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 - is version 4.8. You can install it like so:

sudo yum install gcc gcc-c++

Later versions are available as part of the RHDT bundles:

v4.9: sudo yum install devtoolset-3-gcc devtoolset-3-gcc-c++
v5.3: sudo yum install devtoolset-4-gcc devtoolset-4-gcc-c++
v6.2: sudo yum install devtoolset-6-gcc devtoolset-6-gcc-c++

Once you have installed the packages you need to use SCL to use the updated version of gcc like so:

* v4.9: ``scl enable devtoolset-3 bash``
* v5.3: ``scl enable devtoolset-4 bash``
* v6.2: ``scl enable devtoolset-6 bash``

Once those commands are run then running ‘gcc’ will run the version you requested.

See the Software collections (SCL) document for more information on using SCL.

Intel¶

Intel’s C and C++ compiler is part of the Intel Parallel Studio XE product. This is available to you as a member of the University. At the time of writing the latest version - 2017 Update 2 - is available. To install it you can use the following command:

sudo yum install intel-parallel-studio-2017u2

This installs all of the components of the Cluster Edition of the Intel Parallel Studio. To use the Parallel Suite you must first load the environment module:

module load intel/2017u2

Once loaded all of the environment modules are set such that you should be able to run the configure script (or similar mechanism) and it should use the Intel compilers. You can also use icc, icpc and ifort directly.

See Environment modules system for more information on using the module system.

LLVM Clang¶

Clang is the compiler from the LLVM project. To use it first install the latest version:

sudo yum install llvm400

The LLVM package includes:

LLVM core libraries
Clang
compiler-rt
LLDB (LLVM debugger)
LLD (LLVM linker)

Once installed you should use the Environment modules system to use clang itself:

module load llvm/4.0.0

See Environment modules system for more information on using the module system.

NVIDIA PGI Compilers¶

The portland group (PGI) compilers, now owned by NVIDIA, are a series of high performance C, C++ and Fortran compilers which are heavily used within high performance computiing. To use the PGI compilers first install the latest version:

sudo yum install pgi171

Once installed you should use the Environment modules system to use the compilers:

module load pgi/17.1

You can then use pgcc (the C compiler), pgc++ (the C++ compiler) or pgfortran (the Fortran compiler) directly.

See Environment modules system for more information on using the module system.

Fortran¶

Fortran is a general-purpose, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing. FORTRAN was developed in the 1950s making it one of the oldest languages still in use. It is often use for computational chemistry and fluid dynamics.

List of compilers¶

Several different compilers are available:

gFortran (Part of the GNU compiler collection)
- v4.8 - Red Hat’s built in gFortran
- v4.9 - part of RHDT 3
- v5.3 - part of RHDT 4
- v6.2 - part of RHDT 6
NVIDIA Portland Group (PGI) Fortran
- 17.1
Intel Parallel Studio XE:
- 2017 Update 2

GCC¶

Several versions of gFortran are available. The standard version, tied to the system GCC version, is v4.8 You can install it like so:

sudo yum install gcc-gfortran

Later versions are available as part of the RHDT bundles:

v4.9: sudo yum install devtoolset-3-gcc-gfortran
v5.3: sudo yum install devtoolset-4-gcc-gfortran
v6.2: sudo yum install devtoolset-6-gcc-gfortran

Once you have installed the packages you need to use SCL to use the updated version of gfortran like so:

v4.9: scl enable devtoolset-3 bash
v5.3: scl enable devtoolset-4 bash
v6.2: scl enable devtoolset-6 bash

Once those commands are run then running ‘gfortran’ will run the version you requested.

See the Software collections (SCL) document for more information on using SCL.

PGI Fortran¶

The portland group (PGI) compilers, now owned by NVIDIA, are a series of high performance C, C++ and Fortran compilers which are heavily used within high performance computiing. To use the PGI compilers first install the latest version:

sudo yum install pgi171

Once installed you should use the Environment modules system to use the compilers:

module load pgi/17.1

You can then use pgfortran (the Fortran compiler) directly, or one of the several version specific binaries:

pgf77
pgf90
pgf95

See Environment modules system for more information on using the module system.

Intel¶

Intel’s Fortran compiler - ifort - is part of the Intel Parallel Studio XE product. This is available to you as a member of the University. At the time of writing the latest version - 2017 Update 2 - is available. To install it you can use the following command:

sudo yum install intel-parallel-studio-2017u2

This installs all of the components of the Cluster Edition of the Intel Parallel Studio. To use the Parallel Suite you must first load the environment module:

module load intel/2017u2

Once loaded all of the environment modules are set such that you should be able to run the configure script (or similar mechanism) and it should use the Intel compiler. You can also use ifort directly.

See Environment modules system for more information on using the module system.

Java¶

Java is a general purpose object oriented programming language and runtime. It is intended to let application developers “write once, run anywhere” through compiling Java code to ‘byte code’ which is then run on the Java virtual machine.

Java implementations¶

There are several implementations of Java available on the Linux desktop platform:

Oracle - v1.6, v1.7, v1.8
OpenJDK - v1.6, v1.7, v1.8
IBM - v1.7, v1.8

We strongly recommend the use of either Oracle Java 1.8 or OpenJDK Java 1.8.

You can install the different versions via Desktop Manager or if you prefer here are the commands to run in a terminal to install them instead:

Oracle Java 1.6	`sudo yum install java-1.6.0-sun-devel`
Oracle Java 1.7	`sudo yum install java-1.7.0-oracle-devel`
Oracle Java 1.8	`sudo yum install java-1.8.0-oracle-devel`
OpenJDK Java 1.6	`sudo yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel`
OpenJDK Java 1.7	`sudo yum install java-1.7.0-openjdk-devel`
OpenJDK Java 1.8	`sudo yum install java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel`
IBM Java 1.7	`sudo yum install java-1.7.1-ibm-devel`
IBM Java 1.8	`sudo yum install java-1.8.0-ibm-devel`

Sadly the Java packages do not use the Environment modules system or the SCL system, so you will have to use the full path to the java or javac binaries:

Oracle Java 1.6	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-sun.x86_64/bin/java`
Oracle Java 1.7	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-oracle/bin/java`
Oracle Java 1.8	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-oracle/bin/java`
OpenJDK Java 1.6	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk.x86_64/bin/java`
OpenJDK Java 1.7	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-openjdk/bin/java`
OpenJDK Java 1.8	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk/bin/java`
IBM Java 1.7	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-ibm/bin/java`
IBM Java 1.8	`/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-ibm/bin/java`

Setting the default system Java¶

Instead of having to use the above method to use a particular version of Java you may use the alternatives command to change the default version of Java in use. This will affect every user on the system so please only do this if you are sure you will not impact other users.

Note

To set the system wide default Java you need to be in the Administrators group. See Permissions for more information.

Run the following commands and follow the instructions to change the default:

sudo alternatives --config java
sudo alternatives --config javac

TeX Live (LaTeX)¶

TeX and LaTeX are document production tools otherwise known as typesetting systems. TeX and LaTeX are used to produce high quality documents and books, especially within academia. LaTeX is used for producing scientific documents throughout the University.

TeX Live is a distribution which contains both TeX and LaTeX, among many other tools and programs.

Versions of TeX Live¶

There are two versions of TeX Live available:

Tex Live 2013: sudo yum install texlive
Tex Live 2016: sudo yum install texlive2016

The former version is packaged by Red Hat and does not include the tlmgr TeX package manager. As such we recommend you install TeX Live 2016 which is the latest version and it includes the package manager.

Using Tex Live 2016¶

TeX Live 2016 uses the Environment modules system. To use it open a terminal and run the following:

module load texlive/2016

Once loaded you can use all the normal TeX/LaTeX commands (and man pages).

Installing TeX modules¶

Note

To install TeX modules via sudo tlmgr you need to be in the Administrators group. See Permissions for more information. You can also install modules in your home directory if you prefer.

TeX Live 2016 comes with a package manager called tlmgr. You can install modules like so:

sudo tlmgr install <modulename>

If you prefer to install a module just for yourself, or if you don’t have permission to use sudo tlmgr, run:

tlmgr --usermode install <modulename>

R¶

R is an open source programming language intended for use within statistical computing and data analysis. It is not installed by default on the Linux desktop platform but it can be installed easily via the following command in a terminal:

sudo yum install R

Installing R packages¶

There are two methods to installing R packages. Either install them via yum or via CRAN within R itself. Only a limited number of packages are available via yum so we recommend using R itself.

To find the list of R packages you can install via yum run this command:

sudo yum list R-\*

Since very few packages are available its best to install packages via CRAN from within R. First start R in a terminal:

then enter the following command:

install.packages("pkgname")

Replace pkgname with the package to install, e.g. for Bio3D:

install.packages("bio3D")

You can install multiple packages like this:

install.packages(c("bio3D","devtools"))

The first time you try to install packages R will prompt you to install into your home directory and create a library there, do so and you will be able to install R packages.

Note

If you wish to install the devtools package you should first run the command sudo yum install openssl-devel libcurl-devel libssh2-devel so that the prerequisite development files are available.

Sadly there is no easy way to allow via sudo the ability for you to install R packages system wide so any user can use them. This is because you must first start R as root and execute a specific command. We’ll keep working on a way to solve this but as for now you’ll need to install R packages in your home directory - sorry about that!

CUDA¶

CUDA is a mechanism for allowing general purpose computing on graphics cards rather than the normal CPU. It is thus optimised for parallel computing and high memory throughput. CUDA requires a CUDA-enabled graphics processing unit (GPU) which means a NVIDIA graphics card is required.

Installing CUDA¶

The NVIDIA CUDA software repository is available on the Linux desktop platform so you can install the various versions like this:

8.0: sudo yum install cuda-8-0
7.5: sudo yum install cuda-7.5
7.0: sudo yum install cuda-7-0

This installs the official NVIDIA CUDA packages. CUDA is installed into:

/usr/local/cuda-N.N/

Where N.N is the version, e.g. /usr/local/cuda-8.0. To add CUDA to your path add this to your .bashrc:

export PATH=/usr/local/cuda-8.0/bin${PATH:+:${PATH}}

Using CUDA Samples¶

Once installed you can deploy and build the CUDA samples like this:

mkdir ~/cuda
/usr/local/cuda-8.0/bin/cuda-install-samples-8.0.sh ~/cuda
cd ~/cuda/NVIDIA_CUDA*
make

That will build all the samples, which you probably don’t want. Instead change into a sample sub directory and build just one at at time, like so:

cd ~/cuda/NVIDIA_CUDA*/0_Simple/clock/
make

You can then run the compiled clock like so:

[db2z07@uos-212247 clock]$ ./clock
CUDA Clock sample
GPU Device 0: "GeForce GTX 750 Ti" with compute capability 5.0

Average clocks/block = 4042.890625

OpenMPI¶

OpenMPI is the defacto standard implementation of the Message Passing Interface system. OpenMPI allows developers to create programs that scale across multiple machines.

Available versions¶

Several versions of OpenMPI are available for use:

Compiled by gcc 4.8
- 1.10.3 (Red Hat package)
- 1.10.6
- 2.0.2
Compiled by gcc 6.2
- 1.10.6
- 2.0.2
- 2.1.0
Compiled by icc (Intel)
- 1.10.6
- 2.0.2
Compiled by PGI
- 1.10.6
- 2.0.2

The implementations are either compiled with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the Intel C/C++ compiler (icc) or the PGI C/C++ compiler. You can use the implementation and version based on the C/C++ compiler you’ve chosen to use. All of the GCC versions have been compiled with the RHEL7 default GCC (GCC 4.8). On request we will compile additional versions with newer versions of GCC.

Installing OpenMPI¶

Select a version and then run the command for that version listed below. You can install all of the different versions at the same time:

1.10.3 (gcc 4.8): sudo yum install openmpi
1.10.6 (gcc 4.8): sudo yum install openmpi1106
1.10.6 (gcc 6.2): sudo yum install openmpi1106-gcc62
1.10.6 (icc): sudo yum install openmpi1106-intel
1.10.6 (pgi): sudo yum install openmpi1106-pgi
2.0.2 (gcc 4.8): sudo yum install openmpi202
2.0.2 (gcc 6.2): sudo yum install openmpi202-gcc62
2.0.2 (icc): sudo yum install openmpi202-intel
2.0.2 (pgi): sudo yum install openmpi202-pgi
2.1.0 (gcc 6.2): sudo yum install openmpi210-gcc62

Using OpenMPI¶

All of the OpenMPI implementations use the Environment modules system. Thus to use an implementation simply module load the version you prefer:

1.10.3 (gcc 4.8): module load mpi/openmpi-x86_64
1.10.6 (gcc 4.8): module load openmpi/1.10.6
1.10.6 (gcc 6.2): module load openmpi/1.10.6-gcc62
1.10.6 (icc): module load openmpi/1.10.6-intel
1.10.6 (pgi): module load openmpi/1.10.6-pgi
2.0.2 (gcc 4.8): module load openmpi/2.0.2
2.0.2 (gcc 6.2): module load openmpi/2.0.2-gcc62
2.0.2 (icc): module load openmpi/2.0.2-intel
2.0.2 (pgi): module load openmpi/2.0.2-pgi
2.1.0 (gcc 6.2): module load openmpi/2.1.0-gcc62

Ruby¶

Ruby is a dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. According to its developers it it has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write.

Installing Ruby¶

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 includes Ruby version 2.0 and can be installed like this in a terminal:

sudo yum install ruby rubygems ruby-devel

Other versions are also available as part of SCL:

Ruby 1.9.3: sudo yum install ruby193 ruby193-ruby-devel
Ruby 2.2: sudo yum install rh-ruby22 rh-ruby22-ruby-devel
Ruby 2.3: sudo yum install rh-ruby23 rh-ruby23-ruby-devel

To use the other versions of Ruby you must first ‘enable’ them like so:

Ruby 1.9.3: scl enable ruby193 bash
Ruby 2.2: scl enable rh-ruby22 bash
Ruby 2.3: scl enable rh-ruby23 bash

For more information see Software collections (SCL)

Installing gems (packages)¶

Note

To install Ruby gems via sudo gem you need to be in the Administrators group. See Permissions for more information. You can also use gem without sudo to install gems in your home directory.

You can install additional Ruby packages (gems) with the gem command line tool:

sudo gem install <package>

If you’re using one of the SCL packaged versions of Ruby then you need to run this command instead:

sclsudo gem install <package>

If you don’t have access to run sudo gem or you don’t want to install the gem for everybody on the system you can install the gem in your home directory instead like this:

gem install --user-install <package>

To use gems installed in that location you should edit your ~/.bashrc file and add:

if which ruby >/dev/null && which gem >/dev/null; then
    PATH="$(ruby -rubygems -e 'puts Gem.user_dir')/bin:$PATH"
fi

And then restart your shell/terminal.

Perl¶

Perl is an open source dynamic, interpreted general purpose programming language. Perl is primarily a scripting language, but it is also heavily used in web development and bioinformatics.

Perl 5.16 is installed by default on the Linux desktop platform.

Installing CPAN modules¶

Note

To install Perl modules via sudo cpan you need to be in the Administrators group. See Permissions for more information.

You can use sudo to install cpan modules like so:

sudo cpan install <modulename>

Index of specialist software¶

Amber¶

Assisted Model Building with Energy Refinement (AMBER) is a family of force fields for molecular dynamics of biomolecules originally developed by Peter Kollman’s group at the University of California, San Francisco.

sudo yum install amber16

autodock¶

AutoDock is a suite of automated docking tools. It is designed to predict how small molecules, such as substrates or drug candidates, bind to a receptor of known 3D structure.

sudo yum install autodock426

Avogadro¶

Avogadro is an advanced molecule editor and visualizer designed for cross platform use in computational chemistry, molecular modeling, bioinformatics, materials science, and related areas. It offers flexible high quality rendering and a powerful plugin architecture.

sudo yum install avogadro120

BIOVIA Discovery Studio¶

Built on the BIOVIA Foundation, Discovery Studio is BIOVIA’s comprehensive predictive science application for the Life Sciences.

sudo yum install biovia-discovery-studio-2016

CCDC CSD System¶

For chemists in academia and industry wanting to discover, access and visualise crystal structures easily to support their research. The CSD-System brings you the essential crystallographic and structural chemistry capabilities to deliver knowledge from the CSD.

sudo yum install ccdc2017

CUDA¶

See CUDA

DL_POLY¶

DL_POLY is a general purpose classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulation software developed at Daresbury Laboratory by I.T. Todorov and W. Smith.

sudo yum install dlpoly408

Dropbox¶

Dropbox is the gold standard file hosting and synchronisation solution for modern operating systems. Although we provide this package we offer no support for Dropbox and please do not store any university data within your Dropbox account.

sudo yum install nautilus-dropbox

FFTW¶

FFTW is a C subroutine library for computing the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) in one or more dimensions, of both real and complex data, and of arbitrary input size.

sudo yum install fftw fftw-devel

gcc¶

See C and C++ and Fortran

GNU Plot¶

Gnuplot is a command-line driven, interactive function plotting program especially suited for scientific data representation. Gnuplot can be used to plot functions and data points in both two and three dimensions and in many different formats.

sudo yum install gnuplot501

GROMACS¶

GROMACS is a versatile package to perform molecular dynamics.

4.6.7: sudo yum install gromacs467
5.1.4: sudo yum install gromacs514

GSView¶

A user friendly viewer for Postscript, PDF, XPS, EPUB1, CBZ, JPEG and PNG files.

sudo yum install gsview60

Intel Parallel Studio¶

See C and C++ and Fortran

Java¶

See Java

Kile¶

Kile is a user friendly (La)TeX source editor and TeX shell.

sudo yum install kile

LAMMPS¶

LAMMPS is a classical molecular dynamics code, and an acronym for Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator.

sudo yum install lammps lammps-doc lammps-openmpi lammps-python

latexmk¶

A make-like utility for LaTeX files. Latexmk is a Perl script for running LaTeX the correct number of times to resolve cross references, etc.

sudo yum install latexmk

libxc¶

Libxc is a library of exchange-correlation functionals for density-functional theory. The aim is to provide a portable, well tested and reliable set of exchange and correlation functionals that can be used by all the ETSF codes and also other codes.

sudo yum install libxc300

LLVM¶

See C and C++

lyx¶

LyX is a WYSIYM (What You See Is What You Mean) document editor that acts as a front-end for TeX/LaTeX.

sudo yum install lyx

Marvin Suite¶

Marvin Suite is a series of applications and an API for chemical sketching, visualisation and data exploration.

sudo yum install Marvin

Mathematica¶

Wolfram Mathematica is a mathematical symbolic computation program, sometimes termed a computer algebra system or program, used in many scientific, engineering, mathematical, and computing fields.

sudo yum install mathematica1101

MatLab¶

MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a multi-paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language.

sudo yum install matlab2016b

Mendeley Desktop¶

Mendeley Desktop lets you save PDFs, share thoughts with colleagues and automatically back up and sync your files across different computers.

sudo yum install mendeley1178

Mercury¶

Crystal Structure Visualisation, Exploration and Analysis Made Easy. Mercury offers a comprehensive range of tools for 3D structure visualization and the exploration of crystal packing.

sudo yum install mercury39

MOE¶

Molecular Operating Environment (MOE) is a drug discovery software platform that integrates visualization, modeling and simulations, as well as methodology development, in one package.

sudo yum install moe20160802

netcdf¶

A set of software libraries and self-describing, machine-independent data formats that support the creation, access, and sharing of array-oriented scientific data.

sudo yum install netcdf

NWChem¶

NWChem aims to provide its users with computational chemistry tools that are scalable both in their ability to treat large scientific computational chemistry problems efficiently, and in their use of available parallel computing resources from high-performance parallel supercomputers to conventional workstation clusters.

sudo yum install nwchem nwchem-openmpi

Octave¶

GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with Matlab.

sudo yum install octave420

Povray¶

The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or PoV-Ray is a ray-tracing program which generates images from a text-based description of a scene.

sudo yum install povray37

PyMol¶

PyMOL is a Python-enhanced molecular graphics tool. It excels at 3D visualization of proteins, small molecules, density, surfaces, and trajectories. It also includes molecular editing, ray tracing, and movies.

sudo yum install pymol1840

Python¶

See Python

R, RStudio and RStudio Server¶

See R

RStudio is a set of integrated tools designed to help you be more productive with R. It includes a console, syntax-highlighting editor that supports direct code execution, as well as tools for plotting, history, and workspace management.

sudo yum install rstudio
sudo yum install rstudio-server

SageMath¶

SageMath is a free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. It builds on top of many existing open-source packages: NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, Sympy, Maxima, GAP, FLINT, R and many more.

sudo yum install sagemath751

Team Viewer¶

TeamViewer is a proprietary computer software package for remote control, desktop sharing, online meetings, web conferencing and file transfer between computers.

sudo yum install teamviewer

texlive¶

See TeX Live (LaTeX)

USCF Chimera¶

UCSF Chimera is a highly extensible program for interactive visualization and analysis of molecular structures and related data, including density maps, supramolecular assemblies, sequence alignments, docking results, trajectories, and conformational ensembles.

sudo yum install chimera1112

VirtualBox¶

VirtualBox is a powerful PC virtualization solution allowing you to run a wide range of PC operating systems on your Linux system. This includes Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, DOS, OpenBSD and others.

sudo yum install VirtualBox-5.1

VisIT¶

VisIt is an Open Source, interactive, scalable, visualization, animation and analysis tool.

sudo yum install visit2121

VMD¶

VMD is a molecular visualization program for displaying, animating, and analyzing large biomolecular systems using 3-D graphics and built-in scripting.

sudo yum install vmd193

VTK¶

VTK is an open-source software system for image processing, 3D graphics, volume rendering and visualization. VTK includes many advanced algorithms (e.g., surface reconstruction, implicit modeling, decimation) and rendering techniques (e.g., hardware-accelerated volume rendering, LOD control).

sudo yum install vtk vtk-qt

xdvi¶

A legacy previewer for DVI files within the X Window System.

sudo yum install texlive-xdvi

xmgrace¶

Grace is a WYSIWYG 2D plotting tool for the X Window System and Motif.

sudo yum install xmgrace5125

xpdf¶

Xpdf is a legacy viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Xpdf is a small and efficient program which uses standard X fonts.

sudo yum install xpdf

Zim Desktop Wiki¶

Zim is a WYSIWYG text editor written in PyGTK which aims to bring the concept of a wiki to your desktop. Every page is saved as a text file with wiki markup. Pages can contain links to other pages, and are saved automatically.

sudo yum install zim

Zotero¶

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.

sudo yum install zotero402910

EPEL¶

Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux¶

EPEL is a repository of extra software packages designed for users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux - the basis of the university Linux desktop platform. EPEL provides a wide range of software packages. EPEL packages are available to install on the university Linux desktop platform and can be installed like any other software package, see Installing software for information.

A complete list of EPEL packages is available here.

IUS¶

Inline with Upstream Stable¶

IUS is a repository of add on software for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It provides up to date copies of important tools like Python, PHP and Git. Although it is intended primarily for use on servers IUS provided packages for Python and PHP offer the latest stable releases and are thus excellent for desktop users of those programming languages too.

A complete list of IUS packages is available here.

RHDT¶

RHDT, or the Red Hat Developer Toolset, is a bundle of software for developing applications. Bundles are released with new versions once per year and are supported by Red Hat for two years. RHDT uses the SCL system so that the tools are installed alongside and do not conflict with the base software within Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

RHDT includes the following packages:

GCC (C, C++, and Fortran)
Eclipse IDE
GDB
binutils, elfutils
strace and ltrace
GNU make
memstomp
SystemTap
valgrind
Dyninst
OProfile

SCL¶

Software Collections¶

Sofware collections - or SCL - is a collection of ‘add-on’ software packages created and maintained by Red Hat. They were created in order to deliver more up to date versions of software to customers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux which typically does not update software “mid-life” of a product. Via SCL Red Hat is able to provide more recent stable versions of software for customers to use without affecting the stability and security of the base product.

Due to our education licence all SCL software is available to users of our linux desktops. More information about all the available packages can be found on the dedicated software collections website.

Linux Desktops Documentation¶

Desktop Manager¶

Installing software¶

Desktop Manager¶

GNOME Software¶

yum¶

Backups¶

When are backups taken?¶

Do I need to keep my computer on overnight?¶

How long are backups kept for?¶

How can I check the backups are working?¶

Can I trigger a backup?¶

Can I use my PC whilst a backup is underway?¶

Do backups work when outside the University network?¶

Can backups be disabled?¶

Local storage¶

Your home directory¶

Local scratch space¶

Other locations¶

Network storage¶

Available locations¶

Personal Filestore (via SSH)¶

Personal Filestore (via SMB)¶

Linux Shared Filestore¶

Other Shared Filestore¶

How to connect¶

via the file browser¶

via FUSE (SSH only)¶

via the mount command¶

Printing¶

E-Mail¶

Using Outlook web access¶

Using GNOME / Evolution¶

Using other clients¶

Installation¶

Before you begin¶

Start the installation¶

University installer¶

Post-installation tasks¶

Migration Guide¶

Introduction¶

Migration outline¶

Check for non-backed up data in /local/scratch/¶

Attach the USB disk¶

Copy data¶

Secondary hard drives¶

Install RHEL7¶

Reconnect secondary hard drives¶

Copy data back¶

Permissions¶

Standard permissions¶

Additional permissions¶

SSH Access¶

Administrator¶

Virtual Box¶

Root access¶

Granting permissions¶

Remote access¶

SSH¶

Desktop environments¶

GNOME 3¶

Xfce 4¶

KDE Plasma¶

MATE¶

i3¶

Others¶

Virtualisation¶

VirtualBox¶

Rebuilding the kernel module¶

VirtualBox user group¶

Firewall¶

GNOME Extensions¶

Finding and installing extensions¶

Recommended extensions¶

Environment modules system¶

How to load a module¶

How to unload a module¶

List available modules¶

Show the help for the module¶

List loaded modules¶

via the `mount` command¶

Using SCL without the `scl` command¶