CSM25 : Reading List

This page is under construction. Further details will be added.

Special hints

Unix or Linux systems

All examples in the module will be developed using applications under linux or unix. You are free to use any other OS if you prefer, but I cannot tell you how.

You can use any Windows box (including the laptops) as a terminal to access linux servers. You need two pieces of software, which were preinstalled on the laptops:

putty
putty is a terminal emulator allowing remote login using the ssh protocol. You can log into student.ee.surrey.ac.uk with your regular username and password. From this box you can log into other unix boxes on campus.
exceed
exceed is an X server which allows you to run GUI applications.

The wireless network

Obviously, before connecting to a server, you will have to hook your laptop to the network. We use the University OpenNet.

I hope you have used this before. If you need assistance, Gary Dear should be able to help you with this bit as it is a standard feature.

Example: How to do it

  1. Start Exceed (from the Exceed folder on the Desktop) .
  2. Start putty (from the Desktop)
  3. Enter the hostname: student.ee.surrey.ac.uk
  4. Configure X11 tunnelling as follows
    1. Select the category "Connection/SSH/X11".
    2. Check the "Enable X11 forwarding" box
    3. Enter `127.0.0.1:0' as X display location in the text field below
  5. Click `Open'
  6. Enter username and password when prompted.
  7. You will see a regular command line prompt from which you can run arbitrary programs and commands.

ssh keys

It is possible to configure putty and ssh to avoid repeatedly having to type the password, by using public-key authentication. To do so in putty, you had better read the documentation.

Other hosts

Once your session is running, you can open windows or log into a number of other Unix boxes in the school. Run for instance

The available boxes are

Remember that coming from an untrusted net, whether it is wireless or off-campus, you can only log into student.ee.surrey.ac.uk. Other boxes can only be accessed indirectly from student.

Other Software

Matlab

When you have started putty to get the command line, you start matlab by typing either

The latter form will start a separate GUI window, which is a(n undisputable) pain if the network is slow. (I'd say it is a pain anyway, but that's disputed.) The first form starts the normal command-line interface only.

ImageMagick

You may want to convert between different image formats. The fastest and easiest way to do this, is the convert command from ImageMagick:

The ImageMagick package handles more image formats than I care to remember, and it can do much more, like filtering, adding noise, or convert colour to grayscale, etc.