Duke Statistics CentOS5 FAQ

Most desktop computers in the Department of Statistical Science are running LInux and will be upgraded to the Linux@Duke flavor of CentOS 5 during January, 2008. This page contains notes and other important information about this upgrade.

If you experience difficulties with your desktop running CentOS5, please send an email to help@stat.duke.eduwith a detailed explanation of your problem. Lance will respond as soon as possible.

Known Issues

This section describes known issues with our CentOS5 linux boxes.

enscript is missing

The enscript program was left off by mistake. This will be corrected asap.

Display Size

Some machines have very low screen display resolution by default. This will be corrected asap

Browser plugins on 64-bit computers

The 64-bit version of Firefox does not support most of the commonly used plugins such as Flash, Java, etc., used to enhance the visual appeal and usefulness of modern web pages. If your desktop is running the 64-bit version of CentOS5 you may have problems viewing some web pages.
Lance is working on a solution for this problem and will deploy it as soon as possible.

ical doesn't does work

The tcl/tk 'ical' program does not work correctly. I am investigating likely replacements.
Update: I've found a new version of the ical RPM that does work. It will be installed on all CentOS5 boxes during the upgrades.

Known Changes

This section lists some of the known changes to the desktop environment with CentOS5. Programs evolve over time and some change radically or are abandoned as other, new, programs take their place.

Viewing Postscript Files

The venerable ghostview program, 'gv', is now longer supported. The recommended viewer for postscript files is now 'evince'. Evince has seen significant development since our first experience with it in Fedora Core 4 Linux, the version we are currently running on our desktops.

Viewing Image Files

The programs used to view image files have also undergone much development and change. "Eye of Gnome" is now the preferred image viewer, and is called by the program name 'eog'.1

Changes in Desktop Environments (Gnome, KDE, XFCE)

All three of the major graphical desktop environments available on our desktops have new versions in CentOS5 with significant changes both "under the hood" and in visual appearance and behaviour.
Some users in DSS have customized their desktop environments and may encounter problems when first logging into CentOS5 due to the significant version upgrade in the desktop environments. If you experience problems with your desktop after logging into CentOS5, please submit an email to help@stat.duke.edu with a clear description of your problems and I will do my best to help resolve the problems.