You are here

Home

Systems

Requirements of Virtual DICE

To run Virtual DICE, your computer will need to have the right resources.

»

Editions of Virtual DICE

Virtual DICE comes in several editions. This page should help you to decide which one you want.

Teaching edition

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.

»

Personal backups

"Backups" are backup copies of files. This page tells you how to make backups, so that you don't lose files.

Your files on DICE

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:

»

DICE Ubuntu Focal release notes

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.

Upstream

DICE Ubuntu Focal uses Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa).

»

How to logout of remote DICE

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.

Error message

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.

»

OpenVPN for Ubuntu

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.

Install the OpenVPN client

In a terminal window:

»

Password managers

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.

»

Forum server room fire alarms

This page describes the fire precaution procedures and mechanisms for the Forum server rooms.

»

Privacy statement for School Inventory (asset register)

This page contains the privacy statement for the School's Inventory (asset register).

Introduction

Please read this privacy notice carefully and contact us with any questions or concerns about our privacy practices.

The School of Informatics (the “School”) is part of the University of Edinburgh (the “University”).

»

SMSR: cooling

The server rooms have cooling systems, and these occasionally fail. When this happens, computing staff may contact you, or they may power down your machines. See the emergencies page for details:

How to check the temperature

You can monitor the temperature of the room yourself. Here are two ways:

»

Pages

Subscribe to Systems

System Status

Home dirs (AFS)
Network
Mail
Other services
University services
Scheduled downtime

Choose a topic

Pages