Tips for Using Max, Rose,
and other CS UNIX machines

This file contains basic information to help you use the following CS UNIX machines:

    max.cs.kzoo.edu (Mac Mini -- aka http://www.cs.kzoo.edu)
    rose.cs.kzoo.edu (UNIX (Solaris))
    frogger.cs.kzoo, joust.cs.kzoo.edu, pong.cs.kzoo.edu (Linux)
    smokey.cs.kzoo.edu, scottie.cs.kzoo.edu  (Mac OS X 10.4)

These machines are a resource for student and faculty research and for coursework in upper-level CS courses. You are bound by the responsibilities of the Honor Code, by your responsibilities to and consideration for the students and faculty of the computer science program, and by the policies that regulate all Kalamazoo College computing resources.

The default shell on max is bash (the Bourne-again shell). It has most of the features of other shells. In particular, you can use the up arrow to see previous commands and use the left arrow and back space keys to edit them. Another nice feature is file name completion; if you type a tab after typing just enough of a file name to uniquely identify it, the shell will complete the file name for you. If you have not uniquely identified it, it will complete as much as it can and then you can hit the tab key again to see a list of the files that match the substring you have typed in. You can look at the bash manual page for many more details about if you are interested.

If you are new to UNIX, you may want to look at http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/basicUNIX.html. One of the most useful commands listed there is the exit command, which you can use to log out. The j and joe commands from henson have been installed on max and rose, although the basicUNIX.html file doesn't mention them. All of our UNIX machines also support vi, vim, and emacs. If you would like to learn more about vi, you may want to look at http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/basicVI.html. (Note that when you type vi on max, you will actually get vim, which means you will have the added benefit of syntax coloring, among other things. Vim also comes with a tutorial; on max, type vimtutor to run it, but ignore the very last section on creating a .vimrc file.)

You may also find the l alias useful; type l and it will show you all the files in your directory and identify directories with a trailing slash, executables with a trailing asterisk, and symbolic links with a trailing @. Some other aliases (pseudo-commands) that might be useful are:

    a           list all aliases 
    back        go to previous working directory (before last cd)
    dirt        list contents of directory & its subdirectories
    l           list all files in directory, showing which are
                  directories, executables, & soft links
    recent      show most recently changed files in this directory
                  (useful to know which files have to be recompiled)
In particular, the l and recent commands could be useful as you keep track of your files and work on programming projects.

I would not recommend using max to read mail, although it does now have pine. When your account was created, a ".forward" file was put in your home directory that automatically forwards any mail sent to you on max to your K College account. Thus people can send mail to your max account (e.g., autumn@max.cs.kzoo.edu). If you would like your mail to be forwarded to some other account, such as an AOL or hotmail account, just edit the ".forward" file. (NOTE: You cannot send or forward mail from rose.cs.kzoo.edu; you must use max.cs.kzoo.edu.)

Lastly, you will notice that you already have a www directory as well as a Sites directory that is really just an alias for the www directory. You can use whichever name you find easier -- www was the name used on henson, the previous incarnation of max, and many other UNIX machines; Sites is the name that the Mac mini expects. The only thing in that directory is a subdirectory called images which is a link to a central image repository on max. This is to cut down on everyone having duplicate copies of common image files. To see the images in the central directory, just look at the URL

    http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~yourid/images/
To use them in your own files in your www directory, you can just do something like:
    <IMG SRC="images/bullets/redball.gif">

Contact Alyce if you have questions.