Overview of the CS Lab
The CS Lab is the general purpose computing laboratory for assisting students studying computer science courses at the University of Evansville. As such, it needs to be a clean, comfortable and functioning environment for the benefit of the users. Users will typically ask you for common resources, such as printer paper, toner or other items that are handily available.

Your abilities and responsibilities of this job
You should attempt to make using the CS Lab as simple as possible for users. If they have questions, troubleshoot them to the best of your knowledge. The single most common function you will perform for users is resetting a password. Basic UNIX and Windows usage and/or administration should already be well within the administrator's grasp.

Physical resources
There are a number of physical resources to become familiar with in the CS Lab. The first is the dedicated server, csserver. It houses all of the user accounts for the CS Department and thus, it is crucial that this system provide uninterrupted service as much as possible. csserver is located in a storage closet for obvious reasons, however, physical interaction and access to the server should only be done as need be. Just remember, "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

There are an assortment of computers in the CS Lab itself. These are the general purpose computing machines that users will rely on to complete projects. While it is not currently possible to maintain perfectly synchronized copies of these machines, some attempt should be made to see to it that they have the same standards of software installed. Periodically, these machines are reformatted, and the latest copies of Windows and Red Hat Linux are installed. When this occurs, the software to install across all machines should be selected in consultation with the other lab admins as well and with the advisor to the CS Lab. Actual details of installation will vary as the technology changes, but it is reasonable to assume that the following list of software be installed:

Software Resources
Most of the software used in the CS Lab is obtainable from a location that is relatively easy to access. Up to date compilers and such are commonly free on the Internet, other resources to be installed can be found on CDs in the closet with csserver. In the event that software is not available from one of those two resources, copies of software licensed to OIT can be made available for CS Lab usage.

How to Get Started
Special user accounts exist on csserver that will allow you to store the latest versions of software for installation. They also may contain notes or facts from other lab administrators. Commonly this is located on csserver as the user install. Thus, the directory with all of the installation software would be /home/install. For obvious security reasons, the password to that account is not given here, but can be obtained from the lab advisor or by setting a new password as root.

What to expect for installation
Installation in Windows is a fairly straightforward process. Select the file to install, give it an installation directory, and then test the program to make sure it's necessary functionality is there. In Linux, things are slightly different. Linux uses the concept of dependencies. Software packages sometimes depend on packages to already be installed into the machine in order for proper usage to occur. You may find this to be a frustrating experience initially, but simply note which packages need to be installed, and then install those from either the Linux CD that is currently in use, or FTP to the Internet and obtain the latest copy. Then once those dependencies are satisfied, you can proceed to install the software package you wanted to install in the first place. The Linux command for installation of packages is rpm. To learn more about this, type in man rpm at the command prompt in Linux. A number of dialogues and options will be shown to you with a few examples.

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