Q: What is a unix account? How do I know if I have one?
Each student on campus is eligible to get a Unix account on the UMBC GL servers. This account enables you to register through my.umbc.edu, send and recieve email, and access your financial and personal information online. This is also the account you are required to use for your CMSC courses at UMBC (among others).
If you registered through my.umbc.edu during orientation, you have a Unix account. It has the same username and password as those you used to login to my.umbc.edu. If you didn't register through my.umbc.edu, go to the OIT Help Desk in ECS 020 with a valid UMBC ID and let them know that you don't have one. They can help you through the account creation process.
Q: But I don't remember that password! Orientation was three months ago!
If you have forgotten your password or username, you also can go to the OIT Help Desk in ECS 020 with a valid picture ID and they can reset your password and look up your username for you.
Q: When I login to gl, sometimes my prompt says linux-something. How do I make sure I am on an IRIX machine?
Login to irix.gl.umbc.edu not gl.umbc.edu. Since all of your programs have to compile and run on either irix1 or irix2, logging into irix.gl.umbc.edu will insure that you get one of those two machines.
Q: I don't like using emacs. Can't I just write my projects using a text editor on my home computer and copy it over?
Theoretically, yes... BUT it is very unadvisable. Even when you save documents in WordPad or NotePad or MS Word as plain text, they may not actually be so. Programs like these leave special characters in files that the C compiler may not be able to understand causing your program to not compile. Even if you are running Linux at home, the C compilers are not the same and may cause you more headaches in the end than it's worth. Emacs is something you will use over and over again through out many CS courses at UMBC. Take the 2 hours and learn it. You won't regret it.
Q: When I dial in to UMBC and use Emacs, my screen gets all jumbled and the lines look like they are over-writing each other. What is going on? How can I edit my files this way?
Emacs was written a very long time ago (begin fairy tale), when bandwidth was limited. In order to not use too much of it, the great and powerful Emacs creators chose not to automatically refresh the screen over remote connections. The End.
But seriously, this is the reason behind the problem as far as I know. In order to remedy it, instead of typing emacs filename.c, type xemacs filename.c. XEmacs is much newer than Emacs and doesn't contain this same "bug". If you are still having this problem, let me know and I will see what more information I can find about it.
Q: If you have multiple buffers open in your Emacs session, how do you switch between them?
I have tested this on my X-Windows version of XEmacs, so you will have to let me know if this works for you. How I swicthed between buffers is as follows:
- Type <ctrl>-x b
- Then Emacs will prompt you for the name of the buffer you want displayed (Usually the complete name of the file).
- This will open up a Buffer in your current window.