CERN Accelerating science

Questions and Answers from the UCO

Answer
There is a videoconference system at CERN which is based on traditional CODEC (ISDN) systems. This service is managed by Gillian Bezard-Brown (Gillian.Bezard-Brown@cern.ch), whom you should contact directly

There is not yet a service for packet-based videoconferencing (using computers and packet networks). For this, please talk to Christian Isnard in IT Division.

Question
Is there any mail agent that can handle Japanese characters?

Answer
Netscape 4 is able to handle national characters including Japanese. For more information on how to compose a message with international encoding look at URL:

Question
There is a new newsgroup in the alt.* list that I would like to be able to read at CERN for professional purposes.

Answer
Send your request, with the exact name of the newsgroup, to News.Support@cern.ch.

Question
How can I find out the members of a mailing list (listbox service)?

Answer
Send a mail to ListServer@listbox.cern.ch with a body containing:

who <name-of-the-list>

Question
How can I add an extra pop-up window command in the HEPiX system menu or in one of its sub-menus?

Answer
Everything concerning "HEPiX Fvwm2 default configuration and customisation" is explained at URL:

Question
How can I "archive" files from CERNSP?

Answer
The command "pubarch" (type "man pubarch") gives you access to a "Public Archive Service for AFS Files".

Question
On CERNSP (or other AIX systems) I cannot run emacs and get the following error message:

 Could not load program emacs
 member shr.o not found or  file not an archive
 Could not load library libXmu.a[shr.o]
 Error was: No such file or directory
 Exit 255 emacs bello.f
 

Answer
You probably need to "unset" the environment variable LIBPATH (e.g. type command "unsetenv LIBPATH" if using the tcsh shell).

N.B. LIBPATH on AIX (equivalent to LD_LIBRARY_PATH on SUN/Solaris) tells the dynamic loader where to find the shared libraries and to ignore the information contained in the binary command file. A normal CERNSP user does not have LIBPATH set, so the programs from ASIS (like emacs) have, when needed, embedded LIBPATH (for emacs it has to be set to /usr/local/lib:/usr/lib). Setting a specific value for LIBPATH invalidates this "embedded setting" contained in the binary command file, as for emacs (and many other commands).

Question
What is the exact syntax of the cernlib command to link a program with CERNLIB libraries?

Answer
Typing "man cernlib", or looking at the "CERN UNIX User's Guide" gives the answer:

From the CERN UNIX User's Guide:

7.4.1 The cernlib command

The cernlib command has been designed to ease access to the CERN program library software, while allowing access to user libraries. It is platform independent and accepts the POSIX syntax. Note that you must have the directory /cern/pro/bin in your path in order to use this command.

cernlib alone grants access to packlib
cernlib mathlib grants access to mathlib and packlib
cernlib -L $DELPHI_LIBS -l dstanaxx -l ux26xx grants access to libraries dstanaxx and ux26xx in the directory defined by the environment variable DELPHI_LIBS

The cernlib command is used in combination with the link command by enclosing it in back-quotes on the link command line. It is recommended to use it in conjunction with the hepf77 command, with is a CERN wrapper to the UNIX native FORTRAN compilers on all central platforms.

E.g: to link an application hsimple.f with HBOOK:

 hepf77 hsimple.f `cernlib packlib`
 

 hepf77 -o hsimple hsimple.f `cernlib packlib`
 

Below is a selection of questions that have been asked at the UCO or have arisen from the NICE working group. More questions (with answers) regarding NICE95 can be obtained via URL: http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/support/uco/faqs/#nice95

Question
I have a Word document which contains embedded graphics. Every time I launch Word the graphics are visible only using the Print Preview utility; what must I do to make them visible in the normal document view?

Answer
Graphics can be made visible by clicking on the following drawing icon containing the triangle, cube and cylinder:

Question
I have NT installed on my PC and I have just installed NICE 95. Nice 95 works fine but now NT will not boot, why?

Answer
To create a dual-boot system, Nice 95 must always be installed first, otherwise NICE 95 will overwrite the NT boot record resulting in NT failing to load. To repair the system:

• on another NT machine create the 3 set-up disks using the command: winnt /ox,
• insert the Windows Setup disk #1 into the machine with the NT boot problem and start the machine,
• after a short while you will be prompted to insert NT Setup disk #2 <return>,
• a menu then appears, select the repair option and press <return>,
• then on the following screen uncheck all options except inspect boot sector <return>,
• insert the NT Setup disk #3 <return>,
• NT then detects the controller type, press <return>,
• Another screen then appears asking if you have the "Emergency Repair Disk" (ERD):
  • if you have the disk, press <return>;
  • If you don't have the ERD, press <ESCape>. NT will then try and detect if a repair directory exists: if it does the system is repaired.
  If the repair directory happens not to exist you will have to create an ERD from another NT machine.

Question
Is there any temporary scratch space available on NICE?

Answer
Yes, this can be located by navigating from the start menu to

More Applications -> System Configuration -> Get Temporary Disk Space

Question
I am using Netscape Communicator 4: how do I remove the drop down list in the location window?

Answer
This can be done by editing the prefs.js file located in c:\netscape\users\login_name\ but the recommended method is to use the "reset Netscape 4 config utility" located in

More Application -> World Wide Web 

Question
I have reinstalled my NICE NT machine but when I try to connect to the domain I get the message that the domain controller for this domain cannot be found: what is the problem?

Answer
There are two possible solutions to the problem. Firstly, check that the WINS addresses are correct in the TCP/IP properties. This can be found in the Network icon of

Control Panel -> select Protocols and double click on TCP/IP.

The WINS addresses should be 137.138.16.248 and 137.138.17.248. Secondly, each NT machine has a unique Security Identifier (SID) which has to be registered on the CERN domain controller with its PC (Netbios) name. When a machine is reinstalled, the SID changes and no longer matches the entry in the security database. To "Resynchronise" the information the computer account has to be recreated. For NT computer account recreation please e-mail a request to User.Support@cern.ch