[daip] distribution of OS in astronomy

[Luisa Rebull]

Hello -

I'm not sure if this is the right address for this or not, but I'm hoping
you can help.

I've just started a new job at the SIRTF Science Center, and part of my
job is working with Observer Support.  At the last AAS meeting, the SSC
took a survey of astronomers to find out what platforms they use (OS,
browsers, etc).  Out of the ~2000 people at the AAS, they got exactly 42
responses.  I was assigned to look into ways to get a better fix on what
the community uses.  For example, I just don't believe that 1/3 of all
astronomers are using Mac OS X.

Rather than spamming the community to get a better answer, I thought that
a good place to start would be the people working to support the
astronomical community at other observatories, like AIPS at NRAO. I figure
you folks are undoubtedly interested in the computing resources of the
community for exactly the same reasons we are.

Ultimately, people here have decided that they want to know:
   Web browser & version
   Machine type
   OS used (incl version #)
   RAM size
   window manager
but my sense is that even just a better guess at OS distribution would
help a lot.  I was hoping that, through your work with AIPS, you would
have easy access to at least the fraction of AIPS installations that are
on each of your supported platforms.

If it helps at all to understand our motivations, the workhorse of SIRTF
observing planning and proposal submission is indeed written in java and
therefore is in theory platform-independent.  However, apparently there
are some strange interactions with certain systems/window managers, and
the idea, as I understand it, of this survey is to see which
systems/window managers need to be tested most thoroughly before releasing
the software for a general call for proposals.

thanks for any help you can give,
Luisa


Dr. Luisa Rebull            Staff Scientist, SIRTF Science Center
Caltech M/S 220-6           voice 626-395-4565
1200 E. California Blvd.    FAX 626-568-0673
Pasadena, CA 91125