Giving external students access to UGLA documents

Helmut Neukirchen, 16. October 2015

Sometimes, students that are not registered for a course (but have an UGLA account), need access to course material in UGLA. This can be achieved as follows:

  1. Operations -> Users and groups
  2. New group
  3. Give the new group some name, e.g. External access. Confirm. (UGLA allows to select registered students to be added here, but leave the group empty!)
  4. On the group overview page click on the newly created group.
  5. Add user
  6. In the SSI/kennitala field: either enter kennitala or the person's full HÍ email address. Save.
  7. All operations -> Change group permission. Change permissions accordingly. NOTE: giving permissions for a folder does not recursively apply to the file contained in the folder -- you need to change each and every individual file as well!
  8. Using the URL that you get from "Front Page" link (or simply via the link provided in the course catalogue), the persons should be able to access the folder.

Alternatively, in the Files and Folder area, you can for individual files and folders change the access permissions using the Edit/pen symbol -> Access Permissions

If you have a person without UGLA account, the only possibility is to make the whole course page world-wide visible:

  1. All Operations -> Change front page title -> At Access to the Teaching Web, select Open for everybody (no authentication)

This and other things (e.g. electronic homework submissing incl. student view of this) is also explained (in Icelandic) at Kennslumiðstöð.

categories Organisational, Teaching

Errata CDK5 book on Distributed Systems 5th edition by Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair

Helmut Neukirchen, 1. September 2015

While the CDK5 homepage lists some errata, I found more that are listed below (I reported them, however they did not make it into the official errata):

Table in Figure 3.23: Lower bound of 3G phone bandwidth is 0.384 Mbps, not 384 Mbps. As an update: 4G currently is up to 300 Mbps and has latencies as low as 5 ms.

The table in Figure 3.23 is at least outdated if not wrong, e.g. 10Base5 is only about the 500 m STP; the "T" standards are about twisted pair cables, hence listing coaxial cable (STP) lengths there makes no sense. 1000BaseT allows nowadays 100m twisted pair cables. The "fibre" lines refer rather ot the "F" standards not "T" as the column headings suggest. Furthermore, mono-mode fibre length for 1000BaseF has made significant advancements. Finally, 10GBase, 40GBase and 100GBase are now available.

Further errata to come...

categories Uncategorized

Debian Linux on Thinkpad X250

Helmut Neukirchen, 4. March 2015

What I did to install Debian Linux (Jessie) on Thinkpad X250:

Booting from USB device (to install Debian) was some challenge: in particular USB 3 needed to be disabled in BIOS (maybe some more BIOS tweaks that I cannot remember anymore).

To make the Trackpoint keys work:

In BIOS, disable Touchpad (anyway a good idea to prevent accidental touches there).

Added file /etc/modprobe.d/x250.conf with content
options psmouse proto=imps

Added file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf with content (works only if Touchpad is disabled in BIOS)

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
MatchProduct "PPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint|USB Trackpoint pointing device|Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|PS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Also to make side button of my Logitech USB mouse act as middle button:
Added file 20-logitech-mouse-side-button.conf with content

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Logitech mouse side button remap"
MatchProduct "Logitech USB Receiver"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 0 3 4 5 6 7 2 9 10"
EndSection

(Still sometimes Logitech mouse stops completely to work, then unplugging USB receiver from docking station works -- still need to investigate that. Update it seems that plugging in the USB receiver into another USB port (=other USB type) helps.)

I also experience sometimes that my external Dell monitor connected via DP cable and my dock sometimes blanks for half a second: a firmware update of the dock is needed, but is only available as MS Windows executable. Any hints welcome how to do this via Linux! (A BIOS update via Linux is possible and worked.)
I do not have that problem when using the DVI-D port and cable of the dock -- however for 4k resolution, DP is better than DVI!

I also had an old 1440x900 display that did not report its native resolution when connected via VGA (which btw. reports as DP2). While I might probably add some modeline to some xconfig file as I last did probably 10 years ago, I did the following:

cvt 1440 900
Then pasted the modeline generated by cvt:
xrandr --output DP2 --newmode "1440x900_60.00" 106.50 1440 1528 1672 1904 900 903 909 934 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DP2 "1440x900"
xrandr --output DP2 --mode 1440x900

Also my other display sometimes gets no recognised:

cvt 1920 1080
Then pasted the modeline generated by cvt:
xrandr --output DP2 --newmode "1920x1080_60.00" 173.00 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DP2 "1920x1080"
xrandr --output DP2 --mode 1920x1080

For getting cloned display output with KDE "Display and Monitor" configuration system setting pane, the two screens have to dragged onto each other. However, I like
the old "Size & Orientation" pane more which can be obtained by installing the kde-workspace-randr package.

Just as reminder for me: to use Gutenprint for the photoprinter: create first in CUPS (e.g. via web interface) an entry for the photoprinter so that the printer gets an own queue. Then, in Gimp, this queue can be used when setting up the photoprinter there. In case the Print with Gutenprint menu entry does not show up in Gimp, an extra package needs to be installed: IIRC for Debian it is package: gimp-gutenprint
What I did to install Debian Linux (Jessie) on Thinkpad X250:

Booting from USB device (to install Debian) was some challenge: in particular USB 3 needed to be disabled in BIOS (maybe some more BIOS tweaks that I cannot remember anymore).

To make the Trackpoint keys work:

In BIOS, disable Touchpad (anyway a good idea to prevent accidental touches there).

Added file /etc/modprobe.d/x250.conf with content
options psmouse proto=imps

Added file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf with content (works only if Touchpad is disabled in BIOS)

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
MatchProduct "PPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint|USB Trackpoint pointing device|Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|PS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Also to make side button of my Logitech USB mouse act as middle button:
Added file 20-logitech-mouse-side-button.conf with content

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Logitech mouse side button remap"
MatchProduct "Logitech USB Receiver"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 0 3 4 5 6 7 2 9 10"
EndSection

(Still sometimes Logitech mouse stops completely to work, then unplugging USB receiver from docking station works -- still need to investigate that. Update it seems that plugging in the USB receiver into another USB port (=other USB type) helps.)

I also experience sometimes that my external Dell monitor connected via DP cable and my dock sometimes blanks for half a second: a firmware update of the dock is needed, but is only available as MS Windows executable. Any hints welcome how to do this via Linux! (A BIOS update via Linux is possible and worked.)
I do not have that problem when using the DVI-D port and cable of the dock -- however for 4k resolution, DP is better than DVI!

I also had an old 1440x900 display that did not report its native resolution when connected via VGA (which btw. reports as DP2). While I might probably add some modeline to some xconfig file as I last did probably 10 years ago, I did the following:

cvt 1440 900
Then pasted the modeline generated by cvt:
xrandr --output DP2 --newmode "1440x900_60.00" 106.50 1440 1528 1672 1904 900 903 909 934 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DP2 "1440x900"
xrandr --output DP2 --mode 1440x900

Also my other display sometimes gets no recognised:

cvt 1920 1080
Then pasted the modeline generated by cvt:
xrandr --output DP2 --newmode "1920x1080_60.00" 173.00 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DP2 "1920x1080"
xrandr --output DP2 --mode 1920x1080

For getting cloned display output with KDE "Display and Monitor" configuration system setting pane, the two screens have to dragged onto each other. However, I like
the old "Size & Orientation" pane more which can be obtained by installing the kde-workspace-randr package.

Just as reminder for me: to use Gutenprint for the photoprinter: create first in CUPS (e.g. via web interface) an entry for the photoprinter so that the printer gets an own queue. Then, in Gimp, this queue can be used when setting up the photoprinter there. In case the Print with Gutenprint menu entry does not show up in Gimp, an extra package needs to be installed: IIRC for Debian it is package: gimp-gutenprint

Update 27.5.2024: With Debian Bookworm, I can in the CUPS web interface not detect the photoprinter. Install the package printer-driver-gutenprint did make the printer show in the CUPS administrator interface.

But then, I got an error message about an incorrect paper format. I then compiled the latest version of Gutenprint manually -- but this did not compile the Gimp plugin, so I had to install first libgimp2.0-dev.

Still, that did not work, so I had to downgrade the packages to the Gutenprint version prior to the regression:


The issue is resolved by removing these packages and manually installing the packages from Jammy:

libgutenprint-common/jammy,jammy,now 5.3.3-9 all
libgutenprint9/jammy,now 5.3.3-9 amd64
printer-driver-gutenprint/jammy,now 5.3.3-9

For version pinning, create a file in etc/apt/preferences.d with contents:


Package: libgutenprint-common
Pin: version 5.3.3-5
Pin-Priority: 1000
Explanation: Newer versions in Debian have a regression https://sourceforge.net/p/gimp-print/discussion/4359/thread/8fca54c027/

Package: libgutenprint9
Pin: version 5.3.3-5
Pin-Priority: 1000
Explanation: Newer versions in Debian have a regression https://sourceforge.net/p/gimp-print/discussion/4359/thread/8fca54c027/

Package: printer-driver-gutenprint
Pin: version 5.3.3-5
Pin-Priority: 1000
Explanation: Newer versions in Debian have a regression https://sourceforge.net/p/gimp-print/discussion/4359/thread/8fca54c027/

Once Debian has versions as new as 5.3.4-2023-08-23 (e.g. in sid), these packages can be used.

RICOH driversy
When I tried to install some Ricoh printer-specifc PPDs (offered by CUPS), that gave an error:


The PPD version (5.3.3) is not compatible with Gutenprint 5.3.4-2023-12-14T01-00-6a3da773. Please run `/usr/sbin/cups-genppdupdate' as administrator."

Running that command did not resolve the problem, so I chose some generic PDF driver offered by CUPS in the Ricoh section and that one worked. However, that PPD offered only A4, not A3. But by copying over from the not-working printer specific PPD all lines containing A3, that worked. I probably shall do the same for A4, because the printer itself always complains that this is the wrong A4 and I need to confirm printing to A4 on the printer user panel (which I do not have to for the copied over A3 format).

After I had then a fresh Debian 12 Bookworm install, the above RICOH problem did not occur: I did just use the Guteprint/CUPS driver for the model (just be aware that there is a RICOH and a Ricoh category that have different entries). As that fresh install did not have my above package mix from the old Jammy, the above Ricoh problem might in fact have been caused by my messing around with CUPS...

Update 5.1.2025:After a fresh Debian 12 Bookworm install, the drivers for my Brother laserprinter were missing. That was solved by: apt install foomatic-db-engine foomatic-db openprinting-ppds psutils

categories Tech

Promotion to full professor: Inaugural lecture

Helmut Neukirchen, 18. November 2014

On Wednesday, 19.11.2014, I will celebrate my promotion to full professor. In an inaugural lecture, I will give an overview on my research areas: distributed systems and software engineering. You are welcome to attend in room 132 of building Askja from 15:00 to 15:40. The lecture will be recorded and will later-on be accessible via the School of Enginering and Natural Sciences web page.

bodskort

The lecture was recorded and uploaded to YouTube by someone who is not familiar with German names.

categories Organisational

Doktorsnemi í tölvunarfræði við Verkfræði- og náttúruvísindasvið Ph.D. student position in Computer Science at the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland.

Helmut Neukirchen, 24. September 2014

See text on English page.The department of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, seeks applicants to fill a Ph.D. student position in Computer Science. The project is a part of a larger, Nordic research project called “eScience tools for investigating Climate Change in Northern High Latitudes” (eSTICC) funded by NordForsk – an organisation under the Nordic Council of Ministers that provides funding for Nordic research cooperation.

The goal of the overall research project is a more accurate description of the high-latitude feedback processes in the climate system by improving the eScience tools of the climate research community. The Ph.D. student will develop from a Computer Science perspective scientific workflow schemes and tools to integrate the different data and software that are used by the climate researchers. The idea is to exploit existing workflow solutions, for example from the Grid computing or Multiphysics community, and customise them to enable interoperability of the used climate research eScience tools.

The eSTICC project runs from 2014 to 2018 and the Ph.D. student is funded for 3 years and 7 months. The project will be foundation for the Ph.D. thesis and Helmut Neukirchen and Ebba Þóra Hvannberg, professors in Computer Science at the University of Iceland will supervise. The Ph.D. student will work closely with the other project partners in Northern Europe and visit them.

Applicants should have an MSc degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computational Engineering or a closely related field. Knowledge or interest in high-performance computing or eScience is an advantage. Applicants need to be able to work independently and be active in shaping the project as it progresses in co-operation with the supervisors and the international research team. Good communication skills, an ability to work in a team and willingness to travel are required. The selected candidate will need to send a formal application for a Ph.D. studentship at the University of Iceland in due time.

The application shall include a description of the applicant's interests in the project and how they can specifically, contribute to the project. The application should be no longer than three pages. The following shall be appended with the application: i) Curriculum Vitae, ii) degree certificates, iii) a copy of Master dissertation or another extensive research essay, iv) names of two referees and their contact addresses.

Applications should be sent to: starfsumsoknir@hi.is marked HI1409135. Applications that are not sent electronically should be sent in duplicate to Human Resource Division, University of Iceland, Main Building, Sæmundargötu 2, 101 Reykjavík. All applications will be answered and applicants will be informed about the appointment when a decision has been made.

Further Information about the eSTICC project can be found on the project's webpage http://esticc.nilu.no. For further information, please contact either Dr. Helmut Neukirchen (helmut@hi.is) or Dr. Ebba Þóra Hvannberg (ebba@hi.is).

Appointments to the University of Iceland do take into account the Equal Rights Project of the University of Iceland.

Salary is determined by the doctoral scholarship according with the wage contract by the minister of finance and appropriate trade union.

About 990 students study Computer Science or Engineering at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science. From these, more than 90 are graduate students, both Master's and Ph.D. students. Academic staff at the faculty is about 25. About 450 students are studying Computer Science and the number of academic Computer Science staff is 10. More information can be found on the website of the University of Iceland http://english.hi.is/.

Around 300 highly qualified employees at the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences conduct cutting-edge research and teach in programs that offer diverse and ambitious courses in the field of Engineering and Natural Sciences. The work environment is international and the ratio of international students and employees is constantly increasing.

The School’s research institutes are highly sought after affiliates by international universities and serve a significant role in the scientific community. These are: The Engineering Research Institute, The Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences and The Institute for Sustainability Studies. The Science Institute which divides into The Institute of Physical Sciences and The Institute of Earth Sciences.

The University of Iceland is the largest teaching, research, and science institute in Iceland. The University provides a wide range of education in various fields of studies and services institutions, private businesses and the government. According to Times Higher Education the University of Iceland is among the top 300 universities in the world.

categories Research, Teaching

Nordic Center of Excellence (NCoE) on eScience Tools for Investigating Climate Change at High Northern Latitudes (eSTICC) started

Helmut Neukirchen, 3. February 2014

We are a Nordic Center of Excellence (NCoE), now: The research project eScience Tools for Investigating Climate Change at High Northern Latitudes (eSTICC) has started work. eSTICC has gathered 13 top research groups from the Nordic countries working in the fields of climate research and eScience. The University of Iceland’s team is led by Helmut Neukirchen and focuses on High-performance computing aspects of the project (in particular workflows) and contributes also to training and education within the project. The project is funded by NordForsk as a Nordic Center of Excellence (NCoE). The University of Iceland receives a funding of approximately 26.5 million ISK. The project runs from 1/2014 to 12/2018 and will include funding for a PhD student from start of September 2014 to mid April 2018.

categories Research

Parental leave/Teaching 2014

Helmut Neukirchen, 15. November 2013

As I will be in 50% parental leave, I will teach in spring 2014 only Operating Systems. Software Quality Management which is typically taught every second spring is therefore moved to autum 2014. In addition, the plan is to teach Software Maintenance as usual in autumn 2014. Distributed Systems which was cancelled due to my research semester in autumn 2013 will not be taught in 2014, but most likely again in autumn 2015.

categories Teaching

Research semester in autumn 2013, Parental leave in spring 2014, No course on Distributed Systems in autumn 2013

Helmut Neukirchen, 8. August 2013

I will take a research semester in the autumn semester 2013. As a result, the course TÖL102F Distributed Systems will not take place in autumn 2013 as scheduled, but is rather cancelled/postponed.
After the research semester in the autumn semester 2013, I intend to take a 50% parental leave in the spring semester 2014.
During these times, you may not find me in my office, but I will be reachable via e-mail.

categories Organisational, Teaching

Some statistics on development of number of students and professors and on student/teacher ratio

Helmut Neukirchen, 6. August 2013

As the German magazine "duz -- Unabhängige Deutsche Universitätszeitung" asked me about some statement on "demographic change and universities" in the Icelandic context, I investigated the number of students vs. the number of faculty members (=sum of different levels of professors) in Iceland (and Germany for comparison). Only a fracture of my data will get published in "duz", so here is the full data (based on data from Statice and Destatis -- data for 2012 not yet available):

       Iceland                                          Germany
Year  #Students Change  #Faculty Students/Faculty      #Students Change
2005    16 074             623    25.8                 1 985 765
2006    16 835   +4.73%    682    24.7                 1 979 043  -0,3%
2007    16 851   +0.09%    708    23.8                 1 941 405  -1,9%
2008    17 165   +1.86%    761    22.6                 2 025 307  +4,3%
2009    18 291   +6.55%    833    22.0                 2 121 178  +4,7%
2010    19 159   +4.74%    807    23.7                 2 217 294  +4,5%
2011    19 334   +0.91%    790    24.5                 2 380 974  +7,4%

The explanation for the 2009 and 2010 increase of Icelandic students is the economic crisis in Iceland 2008 that did lead to a high number of students starting to attend university.
As you can see, the student/professor ratio got worse after the crisis in Iceland (due to students flooding the Universities and reduction in the number of faculty members due to decreased funding). For Germany, I did not calculate that ratio for all years, but just for 2011, together with more detailed further data for both Iceland and Germany (note that the number of students in Germany 2011 in the table below is different than in the table above: the above time series is from a different Destatis source than the numbers below):

2011                       Iceland     Germany
Enrolled students          19 334    2 501 990
Population                318 452   81 843 743
Students/Population            6%           3%

Prófessorar  316  Professoren           42 924
Dósentar     213  Dozenten & Assistenten 3 899
Lektorar     261					
Sum faculty members 790                 46 823

Faculty members/Population  0.248%      0.057%
Students/Faculty member      24.47       53.44

OECD collects data on governmental or public spending for tertiary eduction divided by GDP -- however, I could not find this data on the OECD statistics web page.
P.S.: I just stumbled over a visualisation of academic brain drain that uses this GDP ratio (from World Bank) as well as one input parameter of their polymetric visualisation.
P.P.S.: A related visualisation is on the number of researchers per inhabitants. However, the data there is from before the 2008 economic crisis.
P.P.P.S.: Here is finally the OECD data from Education at a Glance 2015 (DOI:10.1787/eag-2015-en).

categories Research

First PhD in Software Engineering defended at the University of Iceland

Helmut Neukirchen, 8. February 2013

While it is nothing new to have a PhD thesis in Computer Science defended (the first PhD thesis has been defended in our Computer Science programme some years ago), the first PhD thesis has just been defended our Software Engineering programme at the University of Iceland: User-Driven Development for Bespoke Software. Congratulations!

Trivia: one challenge for the administration was to find a Latin term for "Software Engineering" that was needed for the PhD certificate that contains a Latin description of the scientific field of the PhD.

categories Teaching