CSS343 Software Information
Welcome to our collection of facts and links for various software that
is relevant to our course.
Compilers
-
Microsoft's Visual C++
home page. If you use this compiler, make sure you've got the
latest service packs.
-
There are some known Visual C++ bugs which have bitten CSS343 students
in the past. Among them are a
bug in getline(), causing it to read an extra
character. Here
is a third-party list of Visual C++ file fixes.
-
Visual C++ has "features" which can reduce portability to other
compilers (depending on the version and patch level you are using). Here
is one source of information about these issues.
-
The Free Software Foundation's GCC home
page. They have their own list of known bugs (though I might note
that none have affected any CSS343 students in the past, to my
knowledge).
-
If you have a Windows machines and would like to use the g++ compiler,
you can get it for free (along with all the other GNU programs: enough
to make a Windows machine look like a Unix machine). This software is
available on the Web at http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/
.
- An alternative would be the
Dev-C++
software, which includes g++ within a graphical IDE.
-
Here is a copy of the g++ manual page,
for those curious of the intricacies of compiling on goodall or lab
320. Note that it is really not that complex; to compile and link a
pair of files, for instance, just use: "g++ mainfile.cpp
otherfile.cpp"; the executable will be named "a.out".
Secure Shell Clients
Our Linux machines do not support telnet/rlogin/rsh/ftp, as
they are security risks. In a nutshell, those commands require you to
send your login ID and password across the net unencrypted, for all to
see. Additionally, everything you do while logged in using those
commands would be unencrypted. Instead, our machines support secure shell
(ssh), a program which allows you to connect with encryption. The
C&C Unix machines also require ssh.
There are a number of client programs you can now legally use
to connect via ssh, including:
-
MacSSH and
NiftyTelnet
SSH for MacOS 9 and less (MacOS X comes with a Unix ssh
implementation),
-
Teraterm SSH (for
Windows),
-
and a number of other implementations
linked to via the abovementioned SSH
Resource Page. You should also refer to the C&C
UWICK
or
security
web pages for local information about such software.
Other Software
-
We have a handy, one-page quick reference
card for the emacs editor.
-
Here is the tar manual page, telling all
about using this command to make a single file out of many. For the
curious, "tar" is short for "tape archiver". If you are in a directory
and want to create a tar file containing its contents, use "tar
cvf ../tarfile.tar *" (note that we create the file in the parent
directory; otherwise, the tar file will contain an incomplete copy of
itself, and will get overwritten when un-tarred).
-
To obtain the GSview Postscript viewer and the Ghostscript Postscript
interpreter, go to their
home page. You will need both to preview under MS-Windows
or Linux.
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