[wplug] suggestions on Unix/Linux machines at Pitt labs?

[Bobbie Eicher]

The reason that the Linux computer lab in Alumni Hall tends to be
empty is that most of the students on campus have no idea how to use
Linux.  While they can log in and use it all right one time if they're
feeling adventurous, with the settings as they are a bit of web
surfing will make their login fail the next time due to lack of space
to create the necessary login files.  Most will then decide that it's
not worth the trouble of asking for help from the lab workers (who
generally appear not to know how to fix this anyway) and also not
worth calling computer services to have it fixed.

Of the more advanced computers science students (most of whom spend
their time a couple blocks southwest anyway) most still aren't
particularly comfortable in unix.

It goes like this...
(actual event)
CS1550 professor asks how we go about connecting to the school's unix
computers (to make sure we know, because he's about to tell us to do
something on those computers).
Student says "Telnet!"
CS1550 professor begs students to never ever ever use telnet for such
a thing again.
Students on the whole don't appear to understand why he says that, but
(hopefully) mostly do what he asks.

So a lot of computer science students are getting to 1550 without
knowing better than this (let alone the ones I know who are very near
graduation and still don't realize there are better ways to upload
your files than to open ftp://username@unixs.cis.pitt.edu in internet
explorer and use drag and drop).

The Windows half of that computer lab can be completely full, and the
Linux half will still be almost empty.  It's still rare for anyone to
bother with trying the Linux machines, let alone do so more than once.
Yet most of those people using the Windows computers aren't actually
doing anything that couldn't be done just as well by the Linux
computers (word processors, IM clients, and web browsers are about all
most probably want).

The small group of people who are regularly using ssh to log into
unixs or javalab are not the reason those computers aren't being used.

When using those computers, btw, I just told Mozilla not to waste
space on caching.  I don't use those computers to download anything
particularly large, and the Pitt network is fast enough that the speed
increase caching web pages gives is trivial anyway.  Considering what
people in dorms are probably downloading, the bandwidth cost to check
a few web pages is trivial in comparison.

And yes, the fact that the default size of the Mozilla cache is large
enough (or was, at least, at the time I first used those computers
~2(?) years ago) that it caused me to have to log into those computers
via command line to kill the cache files off so I could get back to
Mozilla and tell it not to cache anymore is a pretty sad setup.

- Bobbie