Statement of Support for Andrew Linux

If you have any questions about this support statement or about Andrew Linux that are not answered in this document, contact the Help Center at 412-268-4357 (CMU-HELP) or send email to advisor@andrew.cmu.edu.

Terms Used in this Document
Please see Support Statement Terms for a definition of terms used to describe the level to which we do or do not support a service or technology.

Support Details

The following sections outline the details of Computing Services' support for Andrew Linux.

Supported Versions
The currently supported version of Andrew Linux is based on Red Hat 6.2. Machines that were installed with the 6.1 version of Andrew Linux have been transparently upgraded. We will assist with upgrading older versions to the current version, but we will not provide any support for older versions beyond that.

Platforms
Andrew Linux is supported only on PCs that meet the following requirements.

• offer at least 100 MB for / and 500 MB for /usr
• have some swap space (ideally, twice as much swap as RAM)
• must be an Intel-based desktop PC
  Andrew-Linux is currently not supported for the Macintosh, Sparc, Alpha, etc. or for laptop machines of any kind.
• have at least 32MB of memory
• have a PCI Ethernet card installed (NOT a laptop or a wireless connection)
• already connected to the campus network and registered with netreg.

In addition, Andrew Linux uses X servers from the XFree86 project. If you wish to use the X Window System, your video card must be supported by the current version of XFree86.

Level of Support

Andrew Linux is based on Red Hat 8. However, it has been significantly modified and updated by Computing Services. Because of the level of "in-house" modification, the support for Andrew Linux is somewhat different than that provided for other operating systems.

Support is broken into two categories: use supported and run supported.

• Features that are use supported are fully supported by the Help Center. We will attempt to answer all questions from users about these products (subject to limitations, listed below).
• Features that are run supported are provided to the user community, but we cannot offer support beyond ensuring that these programs work correctly.

  Features that are use supported:

  • Andrew Linux Installation
  • Package
  • Depot
  • AFS commands (including fs and pts)
  • Kerberos commands and key setup
  • Printing (printcap, lpr, lpq)
  • Pine
  • Netscape
  • Corporate Time

  Features that are run supported:
  There are over 500 packages in the Andrew Linux system. Anything in /usr/local that is not mentioned above is NOT supported.

  Features that are unsupported:
  The Andrew Unix system, including Andrew Linux, offers users the opportunity to create and distribute their own software packages to the campus community through the Contributed software system. These packages appear under /usr/contributed. All contributed packages must have an active maintainer or they will be removed. We will help users to find the maintainers of packages, but because these packages are created and maintained by others, we cannot ensure that they work.

Hardware problems
The Help Center will not assist with hardware problems. The Computer Maintenance Group may be able to help with some of these problems for a fee.

Peripherals
Due to the number and variety of peripherals available for PCs and the lack of Linux support for many of them, we do not generally support peripherals including scanners, local printers, or cameras. We will consider driver support requests if Linux drivers are available, and we will assist administrators in setting up peripherals in a way that minimizes their chance of breaking their machine.

Local Users
Currently, a central /etc/passwd file is created and distributed to each machine. It is possible to limit logins to a smaller list of users or members of pts groups, but we neither support nor recommend creating local users who are not in the central passwd file.

Last Updated: 07/11/06