Becoming a Playground user on CEC

Follow these steps to set up your CEC account so that you can use the Playground software tools. (The first four steps are necessary only the first time you use Playground.)

1. Type the lines
   pkgaddperm playground pkgadd playground

   in your UNIX shell. It will cause the Playground software and course executables to be added to your path every time you create a new shell. The second line will give you access to Playground in the current session.

2. Type the lines
   pkgaddperm sc_3.1 pkgadd sc_3.1

   to get access to the required version of the compiler.

3. In your shell, type
   echo $path

   and verify that /home/cec/class/cs333/bin and /pkg/playground/bin are in your path. If they aren't, ask for help.

Your account is now set up to use the Playground software tools. Read the information below for directions on how to start each Playground session and some time-saving recommendations. Then continue with Lab T-1.

Starting a Playground Session

Follow these steps each time you begin a session with the Playground distributed programming environment.

Type PGcmgui

to start up the Playground connection manger graphical user interface.

After you start the PGcmgui, an empty window should appear on your screen. It is empty because you have no other Playground modules running.

Once you have started some other Playground modules, you can create a logical connection by drawing an arrow from the presentation entry of one module to the presentation entry of the other module while holding the left mouse button . You create a bidirectional connection the same way, but with the middle mouse button. To delete a connection, click on the connection line with the right mouse button.

Note: Your graphics display is associated with your local machine. If you start PGcmgui on a different machine, you will need to give the other machine permission to put up an X window on your display. For example, suppose your local machine is called foo and you want to run PGcmgui on another machine called bar. Before starting it up, you should type

in a shell on your local machine. Then, in a shell running on bar, you should type

so that the graphics information will go to the correct display.

Time-Saving Recommendations

• Since you'll be running Playground modules on many different machines, it is helpful to be able to log into many different machines without having to give your password every time. Therefore, copy this .rhosts file into your top-level directory. Later, you can add or remove machines as necessary. (Each line says that you allow remote login without password from the given machine, provided that the login name matches yours.)

• The wins script in the cs333 class account is useful for launching a bunch of xterm windows for the various machines in the lab. This script automatically sets the display information. Type in the shell: wins

  Another way to create an xterm on a remote machine is to type xrsh followed by the machine name. If you create an xterm this way, it is not necessary to set the display environment variable separately.

• Modules that use X Windows (i.e., PGcmgui and PGeuphoria) are best run locally. This makes the modules run faster since X Windows communication is simplified.