Information and Tips

 

Some tips and information for using the computers in the computer labs

Last update: October 15, 2018, Th.Kreß.

  • General Information

The CIP-Pool rooms 28A202 (key necessary), 203, and 204 are open Monday to Friday from the morning to 7pm.
There are currently 55 Linux PCs available with the Scientific Linux SL7 operating system (based on Redhat Enterprise 7, but without a license). Please do not turn the computers off, since the PCs are intensively accessed indirectly. WLAN can be accessed in all rooms using the Eduroam network.
Computers, printers, etc. are not for private use. By using the computer facilities, you agree to the CIP-Pool Terms of Use and the IT Center's Terms and Conditions.
Please do not bring any food or drinks into these rooms.

  • Accounts

Since November 2004, we have used the same generic account names like those from the IT Center for new accounts for students. This does not apply to staff, Diplom students, doctoral candidates, student assisstants, etc.
Come by to have an account set up in the Physics Center. This is often taken care of during the lecture/tutorials. You will receive a separate, temporary password, which you should immediately change by entering the command passwd from the Linux shell of a computer in the cluster. Do not use a password that can be easily guessed.
If you are affiliated with a specific physics institute later on (student assistant, Bachelor's, Master's, doctoral thesis), then please contact the IT contact person at that institute to change the generic account into an institute account with your last name.

  • German and US Keyboards

All of the computers have German keyboards except lxcip01 and lxcip02, which have the US layout and are located in the big CIP-Pool room 28A204.

  • USB Thumb Drive

All computers have a port for USB drives on the front of the computer. Storage media is immediately docked and appears on the desktop with an icon. Before removing the stick, you should eject it by right clicking on the corresponding icon under GNOME and KDE.

  • Eduroam/WLAN

You can conntect to the Eduroam university network in all of the CIP-Pool rooms using wifi. You need the WLAN/VPN username and password from your TIM ID for authentification. Outlets to charge laptops are available in power strips

  • Printing

A Triumph-Adler-brand printer is available in room 28A207 with the queue name cip-28a207-1-bw. This printer is exclusively for student use. It can be operated directly from OpenOffice. Make sure that the program you are printing from does not use a foreign format like Letter, but rather a German format, like A4. If you're using Acrobat Reader or your web browswer, enter lpr or kprinter as the print command. Do not direclty print a pdf file with lpr ....pdf. Instead print only from Acrobat Reader, since the created format cannot be directly read by printer and it wastes a lot of paper. Please note that in agreement with the Mathematics/Physics/Computer Science Student Representative Council, you can only print 1200 pages related to your studies each semester. You can see the number of pages you have printed using the command "printerstats."

  • Scanning

The printer can be used also for a scanning of documents. Please note the maximum size of 10 MB in case you send your scan by Email and check carefully the Email address you enter for a correct spelling.

  • Network Access to the Home Directories

You can access your data on your home directory using ssh on the computer. Contact the CIP-Pool Help Desk 28A205 for the access data.

  • CIP-Pool Help Desk

If you have problems or questions, please contact the CIP-Pool Help Desk in room 28A205 or via email to EDV-Support@physik.rwth-aachen.de.