The School's DICE computers use Linux.
We've put together a couple of short tutorials for you:
If you would rather learn from a video, there are Linux courses on LinkedIn Learning:
Virtual DICE is distributed in an image file, which you download.
Before downloading it, please decide which of the ⇒ Editions of Virtual DICE you want, and note the name of the file to download. These instructions assume that you want the teaching edition - its file is called teaching.ova. If you want the basic edition, download its image file (basic.ova) instead.
The image files are large - several gigabytes - and can take a while to download.
There are several ways to download it.
To run Virtual DICE, your computer will need to have the right resources.
Virtual DICE comes in two editions. This page should help you to decide which one you want.
This is for first and second year undergraduate students. It should contain the software which these students are likely to need for their coursework.
If you're not sure which edition you want, choose this one.
The teaching edition is distributed in an image file called teaching.ova.
"Backups" are backup copies of files. This page tells you how to make backups, so that you don't lose files.
Your DICE home directory is backed up automatically, so you don't need to make backups of it. If you lose a file from there, you can get it back:
Most DICE computers use Ubuntu Linux. This page is about DICE Ubuntu Focal. Many servers, and most DICE desktops, have been moved to DICE Ubuntu Jammy.
To see changes to this page, please return here from time to time. All DICE release notes are listed at ⇒ DICE release notes.
DICE Ubuntu Focal uses Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa).
The DICE remote desktop service uses the MATE desktop environment. For help on logging out at the end of your session see our "How to logout of DICE" page.
After you logout of DICE, Microsoft Remote Desktop may complain:
Your session ended because of an error. If this keeps happening, contact your network administrator for assistance. Error code: 0x4.
These instructions have been tested for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (i.e. the most recent 'Long Term Support' version of Ubuntu at the time of writing), but should equally apply to any other recent release of Ubuntu.
In a terminal window:
If you sometimes struggle to remember passwords, or if you're ever tempted to re-use a password, a password manager can help.
A password manager can store your usernames and passwords - securely encrypted - and can generate strong random passwords for you. This makes it far easier to have a different strong password for each site you use.
This page describes the fire precaution procedures and mechanisms for the Forum server rooms.