MCS Linux requirements

The UIS solicits software requirements for the Managed Cluster System machines installed in the Intel Lab every March. If you are a course organizer, you can use this page to document your requirements here, and then point Graham Titmus at the start of March at them, after you have updated them for the coming academic year.

For the academic year 2019/20, MCS Linux is based on: Ubuntu Linux 18.04

Please create for each undergraduate course where you expect students to use MCS Linux a heading. Where practical, your software requirements should ideally list the names of the distribution packages that you would like to be installed. Where you request configuration changes, preferably provide an example of how these can be achieved by adding a file to the system (e.g., dropping a file into /etc/udev/rules.d/ to make a particular USB device accessible to users). (Configuration changes will likely be implemented in the form of installing additional local packages.)

Prefix the list of required software packages and configuration options with

• the term for which you last reviewed these requirements, and
• the crsid of the person who last reviewed these requirements.

Please keep entries in alphabetical order.

Cryptography

Lent 2020, mgk25:

• perl, python3, sagemath
• openssl

Digital Signal Processing

Michaelmas 2019, mgk25:

• MATLAB including the Signal Processing Toolbox and Image Processing Toolbox.
• python3-numpy, python3-matplotlib, python3-scipy

Security

Easter 2020, mgk25:

• virtualbox, virtualbox-qt
• netcat-openbsd
• perl
• krb5-user, krb5-doc, ldap-utils, libsasl2-modules-gssapi-mit
• firefox
• openssl

UK/Ireland Programming Competition

October 2019, mgk25:

Each October, we use the Intel Lab machines to host one site of the UK/Ireland Programming Competition, which is a regional competition to help UK and Irish universities select student teams to participate in the North-West European Regional Contest, the winners of which then go to the International Collegiate Programming Contest world finals.

The MCS Linux machines should offer pre-installed

• at least all the software available to participants in the 2020 ICPC World Finals Programming Environment

• ideally also all the software available on the North-West European Regional Contest machines

• and the compilers installed on the “domjudge” submission system used in the UK/Ireland Programming Competition

There should be clear instructions on how to print from MCS Linux on the printers installed in the Intel lab.

When determining the site capacity, assume that 12.5% of all available MCS PCs will not be working on the day, even if they have been tested successfully three days earlier.

Unix Tools

Michaelmas 2019, mgk25:

• bash, bash-doc, coreutils, sed, man-db, manpages, info, texinfo
• emacs, vim, vim-doc, less
• make, make-doc, gcc, gcc-doc, gdb, gdb-doc
• wget, curl, openssh-client, rsync
• tar, unzip, gzip, bzip2
• diffutils, patch, rcs, subversion, git, gitk
• perl, perl-doc
• aptitude