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RSE 2016 | Workshop instructions |
Thank you for contributing to the RSE conference via the preparation of a workshop. Please find here information on how to prepare workshop material.
The deadline for delivery is Friday 2nd September. This will give us enough time to produce the USB sticks over the following week. Ideally, it would help if you could get things to us a little sooner - even one of two days earlier would be very helpful. Please email material to Christopher Woods, who will coordinate submissions. Chris is very happy to keep in touch throughout August, and to try to install partial workshops in the central VM (i.e. if you need software package X, then let Chris know early so that he can install it early in the VM and would thus have time to deal with any incompatibilities with other's workshops).
To help with the preparation of the practical workshops, you have a choice of two virtual machines;
- Fedora24 (Linux kernel 4.5.5, glibc 2.23, gcc 6.1.1, Anaconda python 2.7 and Anaconda python 3.5.2 installed). This is the preferred choice, and should be used if you can.
- HPCLinux (Linux kernel 3.6.11, glibc 2.14.90, gcc 4.8.3, python 2.7.3 installed). This is not the preferred choice. Only use this if you cannot use the Fedora image.
Please choose the Fedora24 image if you can. If you want a different operating system (i.e. Windows) then please get in touch.
This provides a linux installation that has the gcc compilers installed, and Anaconda python installed in the home directory (both anaconda 2 and anaconda 3). Please feel free to install anything else that you need for your workshop (though please make sure to let us know, so that we can duplicate the installation on the base VM).
You can download the image from here. It is called UKRSE-Fedora.ova and is 4 GB in size.
You should run the virtual machine using VirtualBox, which you can obtain from here.
This OVA file can be imported into VirtualBox by clicking "File / Import Appliance". This will import the virtual machine into VirtualBox, taking about 10 GB of disk space.
Once you've booted this virtual machine, you can login using the username "livetau" and the password that we emailed to you (this cannot be shared on a website. Email us if you need this sent again).
This will boot you into a graphical linux desktop. Click "Activities" in the top-left of the screen to bring up icons to start firefox, the terminal and file browser.
We would like to ensure a consistent directory structure for all of the workshops. To achieve this, we have created a workshops directory in the home directory (/home/livetau/workshops). Each workshop has been given a letter/number, from A1 to C5. These are listed on this page.
Please could use this page to find the ID for your workshop, and then develop your workshop with the directory that has been created, e.g. workshop A1 should be developed in
/home/livetau/workshops/a1
This will help us when we are integrating all of the virtual machines together.
If you need Python, we have installed Anaconda python in the home directory. Use /home/livetau/anaconda2/bin/python for Python 2.7 and /home/livetau/anaconda3/bin/python for Python 3.5.
Only use this image if your workshop cannot run in the Fedora image. Please email me if you cannot use the Fedora image.
This provides a linux installation that has the gcc compilers installed, python, MPI etc. You can download HPCLinux from this page.
You should download the "New Light OVA file", which is about 4 GB in size.
You should run the virtual machine using VirtualBox, which you can obtain from here.
This OVA file can be imported into VirtualBox by clicking "File / Import Appliance". This will import the virtual machine into VirtualBox, taking about 16 GB of disk space.
Once you've booted this virtual machine, you can login using the username "livetau" and the password that we emailed to you (this cannot be shared on a website. Email us if you need this sent again).
This will boot you into a graphical linux desktop, with icons to start the terminal and firefox at the top of the screen.
We would like to ensure a consistent directory structure for all of the workshops. To achieve this, here is a script that will create all of the directories. Please copy and paste it into a text file called "make_workshop_directories.py" in your virtual machine;
import os
import sys
print("Making workshop directories in %s" % os.getenv("HOME"))
os.chdir( os.getenv("HOME") )
workshops = ["a1", "a2", "a3", "a4", "a5",
"b1", "b2", "b3", "b4", "b5",
"c1", "c2", "c3", "c4", "c5" ]
def mkdir(dir):
try:
print("Creating directory '%s'" % dir)
os.mkdir(dir)
except:
print("Failed to create directory '%s'. Exiting..." % dir)
sys.exit(0)
mkdir("workshops")
for workshop in workshops:
mkdir("workshops/%s" % workshop)Run the script using the command
python make_workshop_directories.py
Each workshop has been given a letter/number, from A1 to C5. These are listed on this page.
Please could use this page to find the ID for your workshop, and then develop your workshop with the directory that has been created, e.g. workshop A1 should be developed in
/home/livetau/workshops/a1
This will help us when we are integrating all of the virtual machines together.
The venue will be providing wifi. The network is pretty good, with excellent coverage in the rooms and support for up to 300 attendees at >20 MB/s download and upload speeds. We will have a technician on hand to solve problems. However, you should not 100% trust that conference wifi will work all of the time. As much as possible put all of your slides or material into the workshop directory of the VM so that delegates have the material locally. Obviously some things will need net access (like github etc.), and these should work on the day. However, you should plan what you would do if the network failed, and have something offline available in the VM that the attendees can use locally.
All of the workshop rooms have a projector with computer. The provided computer runs Windows, and provides Powerpoint 2010 and Acrobat Reader. There are VGA and HDMI connectors available if you would prefer to use your own laptop.
There is limited space on the USB sticks that will be used to distribute the VM images to conference attendees. Please try to use as little space as you can. If you need more than 1 GB of space, then please email me and we can discuss your requirements.
When you have developed your workshop, please tar up your workshop directory and email it to us, together with instructions to install any other extra software that you need before Friday 2nd September. We will then make sure to install and test everything in the central VM that we will use for the conference itself.
If you have any problems or any questions then please feel free to get in touch. We are very happy to provide help with the preparation of workshops, and are happy to do that via email or Skype.
Thanks again for your contribution,
- Friday 2nd September : Submission deadline
- Saturday 3rd-Sunday 4th September : Production of the merged VM images
- Monday 5th-Tuesday 6th September : Testing of the images
- Wednesday 7th-Friday 9th September : Burning of the images to 220 USB flashdrives
- Sunday 11th September : USB flashdrives are transported to Manchester