|
In order to work at home with exercises from various courses, several
pieces of software are usually required. Also, there usually are several
ways this can be achieved. Pick one you like.
Secure Shell Client/Xming is a great combination for accessing remote unix computers.
Windows Services for UNIX is perhaps the best bet for running perl and unix on windows.
Quantian is the easiest way of starting a unix computational environment.
Secure Shell Client
This windows software accesses remote computers in a secure manner.
You can execute command on the remote machine with one part of the
package and upload/download files with another part of the package.
Free for educational use. This software does not include a X-server
(X is the graphical user interface used in unix). Download from
http://www.ssh.com/ and choose a suitable mirror site.
PuTTY
This does what Secure Shell does, just a bit different, and it can be integrated whih Xming.
Download here.
Xming, a windows X-server
This program works great together with Secure Shell Client or PuTTY, as it provides
the graphical user interface used in unix (X), when X is tunneled by
Secure Shell. It can be downloaded from here.
It is freeware and quite good. You need Xming and Xming-fonts. When you run the program use "Xming"
R
The statistical language/package R can be found in a windows version
here.
For more information on R, please consult http://www.r-project.org/,
where unix versions and source code are available.
Perl for windows
Perl exists in a "pure" windows version.
http://www.activestate.com/. I don't
know how it works, but the company has been around for a while, so it should
be okay. You can find a free version, and you can buy one with more bells and whistles.
Perl for unix
You can find the source code to Perl at http://www.perl.org/
among other good info.
Windows Services for UNIX
Surprisingly Microsoft has released a large package of software into
the free domain, which actually turns your windows PC into a unix
platform. You get among other tools a nice Perl.
Download here.
Cygwin is unix on windows.
You can find it at http://www.cygwin.com/. The setup is
fairly simple, but remember to pick the packages you need, like Perl.
You could do a full install which is 600 Mb, otherwise the default + Perl
would be fine (Perl can be found under interpreters). Cygwin has a X-server
included. It is not great, but serviceable. Cygwin is free.
ThinLinc client for windows
This software is used in the dtu databars and simply transmit a picture of
a databar screen to you. If you have enough bandwidth (ADSL/ISDN)
Thinlinc is fine for connecting to the databar.
The client can be downloaded here
and is free.
Linux is unix
Using linux is a completely different approach. Install it on your
machine at home. Linux is a free unix Operation System (Windows is also
an OS). This radical step is recommended for people, who want a
challenge, or know what they are doing. While Linux is free, various
Linux distributions can be bought.
Linux will give you connectivity (ssh/sfp) and Perl automatically.
It can be downloaded and installed for free from
http://www.debian.org/ and other
sites.
VMware
This program emulates a computer on your computer.
The home of this commercial software is
http://www.vmware.com/.
You can download a free version.
The trick here is by running VMware you gain access to a new virtual
computer. On this computer you can install another operation system
like Linux. In this way you have two computers in one at the same
time - the best of both worlds. Also if you try installing Linux
on your new virtual computer and don't succeed, then you just
uninstall the whole thing and forget about it. It requires only a
little amount of bravery to try, but a powerful machine is needed.
Quantian
This is not a program, it is a CD-rom. Boot your machine from the CD-rom
and a total unix/linux environment starts up, which among other things contain
Perl and R. The environment is able to access your harddisk, so whatever you do
can be saved. This is a superior way of learning linux at the cost of one CD.
You get everything without installing anything at all. Home page is
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html
and you can download the CD-rom image here.
| 
