Re: installation

[Neal Fultz]

I've used screen with scientific applications, mainly R and SAS, for many years - I haven't touched IDL since graduate school but screen will run IDL fine. 

I learned screen from https://web.archive.org/web/20040401203516/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/9/16838/14935 and it is still a good tutorial where you can learn the basics concepts.

Basically, open a terminal, run screen, then run IDL inside the screen session, and start your job. You can now disconnect and reconnect later, including reconnecting from home.

If all you want to do is look at plots, for R I use built-in terminal graphics (which works fine with screen after fiddling), for other things, I typically write out a png and view it with a web browser.

For X11 applications, you may find xpra of use - https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra - note that desktop linux is generally speaking moving away from X11 though, and you may be happier with a virtual desktop instead. Figuring out how to get Xpra working correctly might take too long to be worth the effort.

On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 8:51 AM Lars Noodén <lars.nooden@gmx.com> wrote:

On 11/3/23 14:59, Brielle Tilson wrote:
> Yes I know that Linux is an operating system just like Windows. My
> current setup is that I have Windows at home and am not looking to
> change it.

Such an upgrade would pay off well in saved effort, vastly improved
security, and overall increased efficiency, but that may be a different
discussion for another time.

> What do you mean “screen does this only for command line not
> graphical desktop”. I thought the idea of screen was that I can see
> the screen of my computer at school. Isn’t screen a GUI?

Screen does not use a GUI.  Screen is a terminal multiplexer, so it has
nothing to do with a GUI.

You can use screen to run a text-based program, detach, then reconnect
to rejoin the original program in progress while it is still running.

Screen only has to be available on your school computer if you are
logging in to it from home:  Start screen on the school computer, then
inside that screen session start your long-running, text-based task.
Then disconnect the session and head to your home computer.  From there
use PuTTY or similar SSH client to connect to the school computer when
you have your screen session running and then re-attach to that existing
screen session.

  $ ssh -t brielle@computer.eample.edu 'screen -rD'

Again that is for text-based programs which operate via the terminal.

If you are working with GUI-based programs, then screen is not the tool
you need to consider, even if it is a very good method for using
long-running terminal based programs.

/Lars