Graduate Student Handbook

Graduate Computing Resources

The Lab

Once you are admitted into the department, an LPL account will be created for you automatically. Please contact LPL Central Computing Systems (LCS) directly at sys if you have any preference on your username while you are here at LPL. Once you have an account, the bounties of the LCS computers are available to you. You can find out more aobut those resources at the LPL Central Computing Systems (LCS) page, and they also have a helpful FAQ.

The Graduate Computers

The lab provides personal desktop computers to incoming graduate students. These computers are Mac Minis or Solaris thin-clients that connect directly to the central LPL UNIX server and are capable of connecting to a Windows Server that can run a variety of software including:

Computers and software needed for coursework and research are supported by either the LPL Systems staff or by technical engineers working on the specific spacecraft missions.

A large part of the software available are open source packages or locally derived tools; however, commercial packages are used as needed, such as IDL, Super Mongo, Metbase, etc.

While Unix is a heavily used tool for research, its use is not exclusive. The computer systems staff supports MS Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris and Linux variants.

PIRL

The Planetary Image Research Laboratory (PIRL) supports a major subnet facility. The PIRL system is operated by Joe Plassman and is available to all Planetary Science graduate students for remote sensing research projects; contact Joe Plassmann (joep@pirlmail.lpl.arizona.edu) or Linda Hickcox (linda@pirlmail.lpl.arizona.edu) Kuiper SS room 429 for a user's account. Further information about PIRL is available at the PIRL website: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/.

University of Arizona

Naturally, the University itself operates a large set of systems and provides a number of computing services. To learn more about them, check out the University's Computing Services page.

If you're unfamiliar with UNIX, the best thing to do is to ask another student to help you get started. Manuals for various programs are located in the LPL Graduate Student Library (in the printer room). There are also some books up in the LPL library (room 409) that you might find useful. Your best references for navigating the system, however, will probably be the other students who have already tried to figure out the same problems. Don't be afraid to ask!!

Mathematica

The Lab does not own a network license for Mathematica, so if Mathematica is your tool of choice, you'll have to do a little bit of extra work to get it. You have two options: 1) use the university's license through the HPC system or 2) ask your advisor to purchase a student version for your personal use.

If you can't convince your advisor, and don't want to purchase it yourself, Mathematica (currently version 7.0) is available most reliably through the university's High Performance Computing system. To access the HPC system computers, you will need to request an account (go here and follow the appropriate link). You will need to provide your advisor's email address so you can be "approved" before they will give you the account. Once you are approved, open up X11 or a terminal and ssh into the ice.hpc system, using the -Y option to allow you to use the GUI. The command is:

ssh -Y (your netid here)@ice.hpc.arizona.edu

Then you'll need to load the mathematica module (command: module load mathematica), and give it the directory for the fonts it needs (command: xset fp+ tcp/sitelicense.arizona.edu:7100), and start mathematica by typing "mathematica" in the command line. The connection will likely be slow, especially if you are ssh-ing from a remote location or a slow computer. Be patient... or choose another option for obtaining Mathematica.