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Top Sun Workstation Questions

REMINDER: Do Not Power Off the Suns !!

• Q: Which Suns can I login on?
  • A: To find out if there are public Suns in your school, contact your site specialist. He/she will tell you if you have an account or how to apply for a Sun account. If you have accounts on multiple Suns, then your files are accessible from any one these workstations. Your files are stored on one Sun, which acts as a file server to the other "client" Sun workstations.
• Q: How do I copy files from my other ECN accounts to the Suns?
  • A: First of all, you need to create a file in your HOME directory called ".rhosts" on each of the ECN machines that you have accounts on. In this ".rhosts" file you should list the full name of the Sun, followed by a space and then your login. MA is a Vax machine in Mechanical Engineering and BACH and BRAHMS are Sun workstations. The following is an example of a ".rhosts" file on the MA machine:

                      bach.ecn.purdue.edu marym
                      brahms.ecn.purdue.edu marym
    

    After you have created your ".rhosts" file, you may begin to copy files from other ECN machines using the rcp (remote copy) command. To transfer a file from MA to BACH, for example, login on BACH and type:

                      rcp ma:me561/prog.f  .
    

    This command will copy the file "prog.f" in my subdirectory "me561" to a file on BACH with the same name. To rename the file use the desired filename instead of the period. Note: If you create a ".rhosts" file on the Sun your home directory must be unlocked and your "rhosts" file world readable.
• Q: Will the Suns get all the same software packages as the other ECN machines?
  • A: Several commercial packages (DI-3000, IMSL, UNIFY...) are currently too expensive to license for the Suns. The ones that users demand the most may be purchased as funds become available. Presently, the DWB text processing software has been installed. Local ECN programs will be ported to the Suns very selectively to minimize software maintenance. Some ECN programs, such as the qplot/crc routines, have already been ported to the Suns and they reside in /usr/ecn.
• Q: How do I ns from a Sun?
  • A: The command ns (network select) is not available on the Sun, since this command is not standard UNIX. A similar command, rsh (remote shell) can be used on any ECN machine on which you have an account to start up a remote shell. For example, to find out who is logged in on BRAHMS, type:

                      rsh brahms who
    

    Note: the remote machine must have BRAHMS in your ".rhosts" file.
• Q: How do I use windows?
  • A: The ECN document, ECN #94 The Care and Feeding of the Sun Workstation, will get you started using windows. For a complete tutorial, refer to the section, Windows and Window Tools located in Volume 3 in the Sun manual set. Briefly: After logging in on the Sun, type suntools, wait a moment, press the right button on the mouse and a menu will appear. Choose a "shelltool" option and release the button. In a few seconds your first window will appear. Two other windowing packages have been installed on the Suns for experimentation. These are X and NeWS. Both have their good and bad points but neither are documented as well as SunTools; therefore, we suggest starting with SunTools.
• Q: How do I preview troff output?
  • A: In a sun window, troff the paper as you normally would on other ECN systems but save the output in a file instead of piping it to the printer. To look at the output, type:

                      suntroff filename
    

    This will open another window in which your paper will appear. Use the menu obtained by pressing the right button on the mouse to page through your paper.
• Q: Where do I get a printout?
  • A: You can send files to ECN printers the way you usually do with the lpr command. If you have access to an Imagen laser printer, you may print an image dump of your screen with: screendump | sunimp | lpr -Pxx -l
• Q: How do I backspace & kill lines on a Sun?
  • A: The default characters are:

                      backspace               DELETE
                      line kill               control u
                      interrupt               control c
    

Please read Control Characters To Change...for more information.

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