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Getting Started

These pages provide guidance on how to get up and running on Purdue University computer resources and how to install similar resources on your personal computer.

Access to Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC) resources

Access to Rosen Center for Advanced Computing resources, in particular cluster systems and the fortress tape archive can be requested from their main web page.  If you are part of a workgroup that has access to a cluster system, check with the administrator of the cluster allocation to get added to shared resources. 

Use these instructions to get started with Python and Anaconda on the Scholar (or other) cluster systems:

Use these instructions only if you want similar capabilities on your personal computer. If you are in ABE 65100 Environmental Informatics and new to Linux, start by using the previous resources to build familiarity on a established system.

Access to other Linux computing systems

Access to the School or Department Linux systems pasture.ecn.purdue.edu and danpatch.ecn.purdue.edu is granted automatically for faculty/students/staff whose academic home in Agricultural and Biological Engineering. If you home is another engineering department, you may have access to a Linux/Unix server though which one will depend on the department.

Other Unix/Linux resources are available around campus, but typically associated with a specific research group, so if you are a member of such a group contact the project lead for access.

Note

I no longer provide getting started guides for general Linux systems. My work and students have moved entirely to the cluster computing systems since they provide a consistent, stable development environment with a relatively low bar for entry. If you need to work on a Linux computing system maintained outside of the RCAC network the previous guides will likely help, as will the information available through the Linux Resources page in this wiki.

Installing tools on your personal computer

If you want to install Python or Linux like tools on a personal computer, please refer to the document on Setting up Computers Outside of Class for instructions on how to install and setup much of the software we use on Windows and Mac OS X systems.

Note

Note that Windows requires a Linux emulator (e.g., cygwin.org), while Mac OS X is based on BSD a cousin of Linux, so may of the Linux scripting tools we discuss in class can be installed and will work natively.

Note

Note that Mac OS X does not give you full access to Linux/BSD by default, but getting access is not too difficult.