Standards

Workstation and Server Support

A number of academic departments in Arts, Sciences and Engineering, use UNIX workstations and servers. Due to the complexity and variety of these systems, ITS must restrict the the hardware and operating system software versions that it can support. The set of supported workstation vendors, CPUs and OSs are listed below.

All departments operating UNIX systems are expected to have operators and/or system administrators with a working knowledge of their operating system (OS) as well as familiarity with installed hardware and applications. In addition, local operators or administrators are expected to be familiar with the security implications of operating a multi-user, multitasking OS and to follow the A&S Unix Security Policies and Procedures.

PLEASE NOTE: UNIX is a general purpose operating system and therefore is often used to provide a range of network services to other systems. Examples include file and print services, web, ftp, dns and email service.  ITS would like to strongly suggest that wherever and whenever possible departments should avoid providing these services and to instead rely upon either ITS or UIT to provide them. Any one of the aforementioned services can greatly increase the administrative tasks and security implications associated with system maintenance, taking valuable machine and human resources away from the systems primary function.

For the systems listed below ITS will provide:

• Initial installation of the system on the University network
• Installation of application software *
• Upgrade of application software *
• Upgrade of the OS *
• System problem resolution

* Access to licenses for popular software products have been made available through a network licensing scheme. For licensing of operating systems and software used on stand-alone computers or property not owned Tufts, ITS will do its best to work with departments supporting these situations as they arise. ITS will attempt to acquire such from UIT and vendors when possible, but otherwise users' departments must provide license and media for OS and application installation and upgrades.

Unix Systems

The following  Unix implementations are currently supported. These are the main supported distributions. Any others outside of this list may be limited due to time, resource constraints.

**While not an operating system in and of itself, cygwin provides unix compatible libraries against which other open source projects can be compiled. This is a great, inexpensive way to get unix/linux like programs such as X11, bash, pine and so on running under windows. For best performance, variety use a native unix/linux installation or virtual machine.

Primary support is provided for OS using x86 compatible cpu from from AMD or Intel, including Itanium, as well as sparc compatible cpu from Sun. The following  Unix implementations are currently supported though such support may be limited due to time, resource constraints. Secondary support is provided for OS using any other cpu from SGI (Mips), Compaq (various), HP (PA-Risc), Dec (Alpha)

A Note About Linux

Linux is the freeware, open source operating system currently getting a great deal of media attention. It is a clone of the Unix operating system that outperforms commercial Unixes in many (if not most) circumstances. Whenever and wherever possible, ITS would like to encourage its use to replace existing NT and commercial Unix installations. Linux provides superior ease of use, support, and stability at a far, far lower cost than either NT or commercial Unixes. While some currently needed scientific and engineering softwares are not available in Linux versions, many others are. ITS can help you in finding such software and in making a transition from currently installed NT or Unix implementations.