Announcements and updates related to the operating systems and software applications available in the CAEN Lab Software Environment (CLSE).
A new CAEN software listing website is available for the Fall 2017 term. This website offers an improved search for finding and viewing CAEN licensed software. It is now possible to search for software applications that match titles as you type them in real time, as well as obtain application version numbers, supported operating systems, and details about the licensing restrictions on usage.
Updated 9/29/2017 – The full suite of Adobe Creative Cloud applications have been deployed to the following locations:
The available applications in the suite include:
Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Acrobat Pro DC are replacing the older Adobe applications in the new 2017 CAEN Lab Software Environment (CLSE). The new software will be available in late September due to licensing delays. GIMP has been installed in CAEN labs as an alternative to Adobe, and is available today in all labs. Those needing Adobe Creative Suite or Acrobat Pro can still use the old versions which are available in the Duderstadt Center Lower Level, and via the Windows remote access service by connecting to the CAEN Labs 2016 pool. These computers will run the older 2016 CLSE for legacy access until October 3.
Important: When installed, the new Adobe Acrobat Pro DC will be available on all computers in CAEN labs, however the new Adobe Creative Cloud will only be licensed to run on 160 specific CAEN lab computers. Once available, a list of locations for those computers will be updated here, and provided in the CAEN software listing website.
Beginning with the Fall 2017 term, students will no longer be assigned a “roaming profile” when using Microsoft Windows 10 on CAEN lab computers. With this change, students should see a more consistent and improved user experience with the Microsoft Windows 10 environment on CAEN lab computers.
After this planned change takes place, students can expect to see the following:
If you have any questions concerning this change, please Contact CAEN.
The OpenAFS client for Windows will no longer be included as part of the CAEN Lab Software Environment (CLSE) beginning in the Fall 2017. Usage of the AFS service (a.k.a. the “H:” drive) has been steadily declining for several years, and after reviewing the usage statics form the last academic year, we believe the software should be retired. College of Engineering students will continue to receive a 50 Gigabyte Windows-based home directory (a.k.a. the “N:” drive); that is not affected by this change. This space is also accessible from the CAEN Linux hosts. Other storage services, such as U-M Box and U-M Google Drive, will also continue to be available from the Kumo Client, and may be a useful alternative.
Students will still be able to access their U-M AFS space by connecting to MFile: http://mfile.umich.edu/
Accessing U-M AFS as the home directory on the CLSE Linux environment will not change.
CAEN is piloting a service called Kumo which allows you to map your cloud-based storage drives such as U-M Box and U-M Google Drive to a CAEN lab computer. Originally developed by Indiana University, it is simple to use and allows easy access to your Box and Google drives.
Setup is easy; just authorize your cloud storage accounts, and they’ll show up as a network drive on any CAEN lab computer. To start using the service, simply go to the website kumo.it.umich.edu and sign in with your uniqname and UMICH password. You can then authorize your account to access any or all of the available cloud storage services. You only need to authorize once. After authorizing, the next time you sign into a CAEN lab computer you should see those cloud storage options appear as network drives under the “Computer” icon.
See our poster about Kumo from the 2016 Michigan IT Symposium:
(Click image to view full size)
Important Notice: The Kumo service is in a pilot deployment state. CAEN is in the process of finalizing software licensing for the Kumo service, which is expected to be completed by the end of January 2017. Students can register and use the Kumo service normally today, and should not notice any difference in the service once the software licensing is finalized and the service moves from pilot to production.
Changes to the CLSE this summer included upgrading the base operating systems to Microsoft Windows 10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, as well as removing the “I” (Instructional) or “R” (Research) computer designations. For further details on these changes, and more, refer to our recent CAEN News Article.
When logging into CAEN Windows lab computers, ITS AFS home directories will no longer be automatically mounted to the H: network drive. This change is being made due to a number of compatibility problems associated with AFS storage technology and the Windows operating system (see this previous news article for more information about the problems). Students are encouraged to instead use their CAEN Windows home directory (N: drive) to store all of their class work. Recently, the CAEN Windows home directory quota was increased to 50 GB.
While the ITS AFS home directories are no longer automatically mounted, they can be mounted manually by double-clicking on the Mount AFS (IFS) Drives desktop icon:
The CLSE changes this summer included upgrading the base operating systems to Microsoft Windows 10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, as well as removing the “I” (Instructional) or “R” (Research) computer designations.
Students no longer have to decide between an “I” (Instructional) or “R” (Research) computer when walking into a CAEN student computer lab. Instructional versus research licensed software is now selected when launching software, either using the software-on-demand environment in Windows, or using specifically-configured environment modules in Linux. For example, MATLAB now has two options to launch; one for “Student Instructional” use and one for “Academic Research” use. To stay in compliance with software licensing agreements, it’s important for students to select the correct software depending on how they intend to use it. This software listing website should be helpful for those who need help in determining this.
The base operating system has been upgraded to Windows 10 for the CLSE for Windows. Windows 10 has greatly improved the performance of the CAEN software-on-demand environment (a.k.a, Cloudpaging, Application Jukebox). Students should immediately notice the improvement in launch speed of software applications.
The GNOME 3 Classic user interface has now replaced Cinnamon Desktop as the default window manager in the CLSE for Linux. As a result, students will notice a difference in their login environment, including new system menus, icons, and file navigation windows. Although the Cinnamon Desktop was introduced as the default user interface only last year, the change back to GNOME 3 Classic was made for several important reasons, including that it:
The remote access Linux server that requires dual-factor authentication to login, restricted-course.engin.umich.edu, has been upgraded to use the University’s new Duo two-factor authentication method. Students should make sure their VNC client is the latest supported version.
The following software applications are now locally installed on Linux: Altera, cadence-ic, calibre, mmsim, synopsis-synth, and vcs. In addition, MATLAB has been updated to version 2016a.
Your Windows home directory is now accessible from Linux in the /studenthome/uniqname directory. This means all Linux software applications are able to read and write files directly to your Windows home directory.
We have removed QuickTime from being available in Application Jukebox on computers running the CLSE for Windows. This was done in response to the following CERT advisory:
https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA16-105A
The CAEN Lab Software Environment (CLSE) will be upgraded to Microsoft Windows 10 for the Fall 2016 term. The change will improve the performance of our software on-demand environment, better support newer computer hardware being released, and provide a similar operating system that students have on their personal computers today.
CAEN will continue to deploy dual-boot computers with both Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in the CAEN computer labs. RHEL will be upgraded from 7.2 to 7.3, which is an incremental update with only minor changes to the environment.
This “Release Notes” web page has been created to post the updates and additions related to the CLSE changes. The availability and locations of test workstations will also be listed on this page.
In addition, CAEN has created two Google Sheets that list the version and deployment status for each software title planned to be included in the CLSE for the upcoming academic year:
If a course requires a version of an application that is not shown in the above documents, instructors may complete the request form.