Information for new users

This page contains a very brief introduction to our computer system, just enough to get you started. If you got a paper copy of this page along with your user account, you can find an electronic version on http://wiki.math.ntnu.no/drift/gettingstarted

When you got your computer account, the password was generated automatically (and looks random). It is recommended that you change the password the first time you log in. To change your password, open a web browser and go to https://bas.ntnu.no/passwd/. After changing your password, it can take up to 30 minutes before the new password is active. It is recommended that you log out and in again some time (≈30 minutes) after you've changed your password, this will avoid some problems that may appear otherwise.

When using Windows: Do not save documents or other files on the desktop. In windows, you should always save your files under My Documents, which is the same folder as M:\. You may use either name to access your files, both point to the same folder. This folder contains some special files, notably Mailbox (which is your email inbox), and nt (where some settings are stored). Please leave those files alone, deleting the Mailbox file will erase the contents of your inbox.

Your Unix home directory is the same directory (folder) as M:\ is in windows, and you should save all your files in that directory.

There is one exception to these guidelines; that applies to those who have large data sets or are running computations that generate large output files. For more information about this, please read about Computations on our web pages.

We recommend using Thunderbird as your email reader. Thunderbird is easy to use, and it won't ask you about any email settings when you start it. We've already told it everything it needs to know. When you're not in your office, you can also use our webmail. (We don't recommend using webmail for day-to-day use.)

In case your office has a Windows computer and you need to access a Unix computer you can use F-Secure SSH or Putty to access login.math.ntnu.no. If you have a Unix computer and need Windows, you can open a terminal window and run the command windows.

If you're using your own laptop, you may also be interested in information about how to use the wireless network at NTNU.

In case you need assistance with your office computer, you are welcome to have a look at our web pages at http://wiki.math.ntnu.no/drift or send an email to drift [at] math [dot] ntnu [dot] no. You may also call Tommy (phone 50236) or Per Kristian (phone 50234).