6.01 Software: Emacs on Athena

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Fall Semester, 2007
6.01: Introduction to EECS 1

Using the 6.01 software on Athena

These instructions are for using Python, IDLE, and SoaR on Athena. If you would prefer to use Emacs, follow the instructions for setting up Emacs Python mode.

These instructions only work on Linux Athena machines. Most Athena cluster machines are Linux Athena machines (and all of the machines in 34-501 are Linux Athena machines). You can determine whether or not a machine is a Linux Athena machine by running "uname" at an Athena prompt (the response will either be "Linux" or "SunOS").

To get started, open up a terminal and do:

athena% add -f 6.01

Then, type one of the following three commands at the athena% prompt:

python will start the Python 2.5 interpreter
idle will start IDLE for Python 2.5
SoaR will start SoaR

To avoid having to type add -f 6.01 every time you login to Athena, you can add the following to a file called .cshrc.mine in your home directory (create it if it doesn't exist):

add -f 6.01