[daip] distribution of OS in astronomy

[Eric Greisen]

Luisa Rebull writes:

 > the community uses.  For example, I just don't believe that 1/3 of all
 > astronomers are using Mac OS X.

     No one has asked us to port our basic software package to Macs.

 > 
 > 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.

     We put usage of aips things in every AIPSLetter.  They are all
available from our web site:
       http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/aips/
and show most people are moving from SUN to Linux although many SUNs
and miscellaneous HP, DEC, SGI machines are still in use.

 > 
 > Ultimately, people here have decided that they want to know:
 >    Web browser & version
 >    Machine type
 >    OS used (incl version #)
 >    RAM size
 >    window manager

    We would have no idea about browsers, RAM size, and window
managers.  They do not affect our software directly.  The users are
switching over time to computers that run Linux and they tend to run a
relatively current version from RedHat (the most popular in the U.S.),
Suze (Europeans prefer but some U.S. folks use), and others.  The
machines themselves run the gamet from laptops to desktops, single-
and multi-headed and a variety of CPU chips as well.


 > 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.

We do not use java at all.  We are still concerned with Fortran almost
exclusively.  Users do tend to employ that which comes with their
computer or which is free from GNU.  But commercial products often
give the most trouble (as with ssh).

Good luck.

Eric Greisen