Simpi

Obsolete This article or the information contained in it is old and quite possibly faulty. Sort of like our cruft. Please update.

As of Fall '18. Simpi can no longer be found on hall. :( This pafe is left for posterity and hope that one day, it's spirit will be at rest.

As of October 18, Simpi is running Athena 10, as opposed to Debathena (starting summer '08) and Athena 9 (before summer '08). Athena 10 is in beta (official release around IAP '09; deployment to clusters around summer '09), and while it is a significant improvement over Athena 9 there are lots of usability issues that need to be ironed out. People should report these issues here.

I (Meeg) will be checking this page roughly daily. If I can find a workaround, it will be added to the hall computer how-to. If the issue is specific to our hardware or setup, I'll fix it as best I can. If the issue is a general problem with Athena 10, I will report it to the testers list. In any case I'll make a note on this page.

Depending on how this goes, I may switch Simpi back to Debathena, in which case this page will still be used for help requests with Simpi.

Issues - Athena 10

• Too much shiny desktop effects (chrome); login is slow. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Turn off the effects in System/Preferences/Appearance. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
• Sound does not work - speakers make noise when plugged in. Meeg 16:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Issues - Debathena

• Default browser is Epiphany, which sucks. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Run Firefox (see below) and set preferences to make it your default browser. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
• Can't find Firefox. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Firefox is called Iceweasel and is in Applications/Internet. Alternatively, run it from a terminal, where "firefox" is aliased to Iceweasel. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
• Screen resolution settings may be screwed up by changing them on other Debathena machines. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Use the "set as default on this computer only" option when changing resolution. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
• Package manager prompts for updated packages, even for users without admin privileges. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Turn off notifications. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
• Don't know how to log out. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • System menu. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
• Can't find Terminal. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Applications/Accessories. Meeg 20:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Configuration

Swapped in: Athena 10 on Ubuntu 8.04 (i386), using official Athena 10 installer. Options: workstation, csoft

• Local users: meeg

Swapped out: Debathena on Debian Lenny (i386), using official Debathena installer to install debathena-workstation.

• OpenAFS modules built locally with module-assistant (must be rebuilt for new kernel version).
• Custom ALSA configuration: sound card is device 0, integrated is device 1.
• Darkice stream from microphone on sound card to Icecast2 on mrbigstuff.
• Disabled kerneloops and NetworkManager daemons.
• Installed mplayer, screen
• Local users: meeg

Hardware: Pentium 4, 768 MB RAM, ATI graphics, integrated sound and separate sound card. Two hard drives, one for each distribution (swap in as needed) - BIOS is unhappy with two hard drives for some reason.

Outside resources

• Official Athena 10 page: http://athena10.mit.edu/
• Official Debathena page: http://debathena.mit.edu/
• Athena 10 testers list: testers@mit.edu (blanche yourself on if you like)