2001 Michelson Interferometry Summer School

Computers and Software used at the Michelson Summer School

Peter Lawson (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

I wanted to run LabVIEW for the FLUOR software (which normally runs on Macs) and IDL to run software suites developed under Unix and Linux. The FLUOR software had been noted to run on PCs previously, and so I chose to dual-boot laptops under Windows 98 and Redhat Linux. These are notes on how the laptops were ordered, how they were configured, what software was used during the school.

Carl Nybro at National Instruments very generously provided the school with LabVIEW 6i software to run on Windows, and Karl Nichols at Research Associates also generously provided IDL and temporary licenses for use at the school.

At the CHARA Array

Laptops were rented from Rentex Computer Rentals. The principal contact there was Sean at (800) 545-2313 ext 252. We initially arranged to rent Toshiba 4180, 450 MHz computers with 128 MB RAM, running Windows 98, and with X-jack ethernet cards. Nils went through the dual-boot installation of these in the week of April 13th using Redhat 7. Some photographs of that are shown here. Ultimately those same computers were not available and so we had to re-do the installation in the week before the school.

We agreed to use a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 with 750 MHz Pentium III, 128 MB RAM, and 20 GB hard-drive. We also requested that they come with Windows 98 installed (as dual-boot is more difficult to set up under Windows 2000). These computers were new when rented. 128 MB RAM was requested so that we could run 24-bit color on some IDL applications. Rentex had no problem with us setting up their machines to dual-boot. OAO, the normal JPL PC provider, refused to allow us to do the same.

A week before the school one laptop was delivered to Mnt Wilson and was setup for dual-boot by Nils Turner at the CHARA Array. An image was made of the Windows side. The disk was re-partitioned using fdisk and Redhat 7.1 was installed. The only serious problem that was encountered was that the graphics chip on the Toshiba (a Cyberblade something-or-other) was so new that there was not yet Linux support for it. The configuration that Nils tried would only support 8 and 16 bit graphics, and IDL would only operate with 8 or 24-bit graphics, and so we had to settle for 8-bit graphics for IDL.

LabVIEW 6i was installed on the Windows side with the 0.2 patches.
The FLUOR software suite was also installed on the Windows side.
The Windows background was set to the Michelson "octant" tile.
On the Linux side a guest account was created.
IDL was installed on the Linux side.
Within the guest account:
- Christian Hummel's catalogs and Oyster software were installed
- Peter Tuthill and John Monnier's masking software was installed.

Some preliminary tests were done: LabVIEW was run, and so were the examples emailed with IDL. Some of the masking demos were tested, and the installation of oyster was verified with Christian. An image was then made of the Linux side onto one CDROM using bzip2. An image was also made of the Windows side also onto one CDROM, again using bzip2.

At Lowell Observatory

This computer was hand-carried to Lowell on the Thursday before the school. The remaining 17 computers were delivered directly to Lowell and were set up and networked in Slipher conference room.

Two image CDROMs had been burnt, one with the Windows side and one with the Linux side. Unfortunately the Windows side was corrupted and unusable. The hand-carried laptop was networked with the other computers and its disk was remotely mounted to the other machines to mount the Windows side. Nils's build instructions for other computers were noted in detail.

Redhat 7.1 was used for Linux with the Gnome shell.
tomsrtbt was used to help set up the dual boot.
bzip2 was used to make CDROM archives.
Winzip was used as a general utility for the Windows side.
StuffIt Expander was used to uncompress the FLUOR software suite onto a PC.

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FLUOR Software

Installation notes.
Sample_source_list.pdf.
FLUOR-CROM (53 MB) compressed with Winzip.

NPOI Software

Aperture Masking Software

Installation notes.
Instructions for the tutorial.
Download Masking_2001.2001May14.tar.gz (130 MB)

Notes on the CDROM Proceedings

Goldwave was used to digitize the audio tapes to wav files.
RealProducer was used to convert the wav files into RealMedia files.
Brilliant Box 2CD Carriers

Carthuplas

All files were made to have names with 8 characters or less and HTML files were noted with htm extensions to avoid conflicts between Mac, Unix, and DOS operating systems.
Links checked with checklinks. HTML checked with Doctor HTML and briefly with W3C Validator.
Editing was performed using Netscape Communicator to view the files.
The CDROMs were burnt on a Unix workstation using mkisofs to make the iso9660 image file with Rock Ridge extentions:
mkisofs -a -r -o image_file source_directory

Software Packages used at the Summer School are Being Sponsored By

(LabView 6.i) Carl Nybro (800) 433-3488 x39559
LabVIEW 6.02 Update for Windows

(IDL) Karl Nichols (303) 413-3960.

AIPS++ release 1.5 April 15, 2001.
Redhat: Julie Tarlet, (919) 547-0012 x335, jdtarlet@redhat.com

Caltech 1999 | Berkeley 2000 | Flagstaff 2001 | CfA 2002

Course Notes from the 2001 Michelson Interferometry Summer School
Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff Arizona, May 21-25, 2001

Edited by P.R. Lawson (JPL)
Last Updated 9 February 2004