Resources - Bishop's University

CS Computing Facilities

The department maintains computing facilities in addition to the general facilities provided by ITS, as follows. Technical support for all these facilities can be obtained by writing to cs-support@cs.ubishops.ca.

All CS students (and also students taking CS courses) have access to the machine linux.ubishops.ca. You probably already have an account on this machine. If you don’t have one or you do not know your login credentials contact your CS instructor or write to cs-support@cs.ubishops.ca.

Note that the old student accounts (on cs-linux.ubishops.ca) are not migrated automatically. If you have an old account and want to recover your data obtain first a new account and then send a request to cs-support@cs.ubishops.ca mentioning your name and user name (and also the old user name if different).

The machine linux.ubishops.ca provides the following services, available both on- and off-campus:

Remote Login

Remote login using the SSH protocol and including X11 forwarding. Windows users should use an SSH client such as PuTTY to login and an SCP client such as WinSCP to transfer files. Mac OS and Linux users can use the commands ssh and scp that come with the operating system.

SSH access includes the possibility of using SSHFS to mount directories remotely. See the documentation of your operating system to see how to use SSHFS, or write to cs-support@cs.ubishops.ca for support.

Remote Graphical Desktop Using X2Go

X2Go is installed in all the computing labs on campus (on both the Mac OS and Windows sides); for use on personal computers the X2Go client needs to be downloaded first. One way or another provide the following to connect: your linux.ubishops.ca user name (and password later when prompted), and one of the following two session types:

LXDE, which is a very basic (and clunky) desktop environment but is fast to start up and use.

XFCE, which offers a more polished desktop but requires more resources to run and so it may be slower depending on the load of the system and your network connection. You also need to be aware of three settings; they are set to appropriate defaults system-wide but it is a good idea to double check since leftover configuration in your home directory may set them the wrong way.

Make sure that the compositor is disabled, or else your desktop will be unbearably slow. To do so go to Application Menu > Settings > Window Manager Tweaks, select the Compositor tab, and make sure that the very first option (“Enable display compositing”) is cleared.
If your Tab key is not working then you need to go to Application Menu > Settings > Window Manager, click on the Keyboard Tab, and clear the “Switch window for same application” setting. This is actually a known XFCE bug.
Finally, make sure that the screen saver is disabled, for otherwise you may face a black, unresponsive desktop after a period of inactivity. Go to Application Menu > Settings > Screensaver and ensure that the obvious option (“Enable screensaver”) is off.

We generally recommend XFCE, with LXDE as a backup in case network or system load makes the former unusable.

Graduate students in the thesis-based stream have in addition access to cs.ubishops.ca which provides email services and personal web space. By defaults, email forwarding is the only service that is set up. To know your user name and/or request additional services contact your supervisor or write to cs-support@cs.ubishops.ca.

CS Help Centre

The CS Help Centre is located in J9, and provides help especially for questions related to first-year CS courses. Senior CS students are available Monday to Thursday, 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. to help you with the material you have difficulty with. You are all welcome to use this facility.

At other times, the room is used by any Computer Science student as a “hangout” room, where they can have lunch (microwave, fridge, and coffee machine provided!), socialize, spend time between classes, or plan for interesting activities in a respectful and collegial way!

A large number of senior students have a key to the room. If you want one,

see the information on the Access Card and Key page of the Buildings & Grounds website,
fill-in the form provided on the above web page,
bring the form to the departmental chair for a signature.

Note that a deposit will be asked from you when you get your key from Buildings & Grounds.