Task:	Applications at Forrest Hill/South Bridge
Group:	gordon
Stage:	1

User applications specific to Forrest Hill and South Bridge

The initial roll-out of DICE in FH/SB was intended to only affect first and second year undergraduates, however subsequent plans will allow the MSc machines to be upgraded at the same time. This means that as far as teaching software is concerned we will need to ensure that software for virtually all the AI3/4 modules and MSc only modules is available and installed for Linux.

Courses for years 1 and 2 are AI1Ah, AI1Bh, AI2Ah and AI2Bh. Initial consultation with the course organisers and module lecturers indicates that the main software for these courses is SICStus Prolog. We already have a suitable version which will run on Linux.

A list of all AI modules can be found at http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/dai/teaching/modules/ Only some of the module descriptions include mention of the software used. In addition the MSc Course guide shows how modules from outside AI can be combined, for each area specialism. An expanded table of modules, lecturer, software requirements, current versions, licencing and supplier details etc is under construction at http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/~gordon/modules.html. (Where should this go?) This will require to be verified by academic staff for their own modules.

Some of the software in use for teaching is anything from 6 to 10 years old, and a direct port from Solaris to Linux may not be feasible. Other software comprises programs and shell scripts which reside in academic's or teaching assistant's legacy filespace or on their legacy Homepages. This probably isn't the best way to distribute things under DICE. Academics will need to change instructions in teaching documentation.

Some of the software may have changed from being free to having a cost. Other items are not available on Linux, and will require either a workaround using Suns in the short term or to be replaced.

If new versions of software are installed for DICE then we should keep the versions on Solaris synchronised, as year 3 and 4 students will still be using legacy Suns.

Some software mentioned in module descriptions includes bvs, Berkeley Logo,Sicstus Prolog, Cogent, SWI Prolog, GTK, Tlearn, angeseg, xv, xmag, pgabatch, simplepg, MATLAB, visilog, Allegro Common Lisp, VIE, GATE, Java, Java Bayes. This list is not exhaustive.

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