Preliminary remark: For devices that have a FreeBSD/OSX dual boot setup installed, a reboot can be triggered on the login screen to switch to the other system. Please note that this switch may be blocked if the computer is assigned to special tasks. In such a case, please never force a switch by switching off/on.

The ARBI workstations, which can be used by students as computers for exercises and network access, are spread over five rooms:

Room A4 2-205 (BSD room 1, BLUE) contains 24 workstations of the Apple iMac type with Intel Core i5 CPUs. The BSD-UNIX FreeBSD 9.3 and macOS 10.12 ('Sierra') operating systems are installed on these devices in a dual-boot setup. This is where most of the software runs, which can also be used on the other ARBI and Department devices via telnet/rlogin/ssh remote login or remote X display. Hardware equipment: Intel Core i5 CPU with 2.5 GHz clock frequency, 4 GB main memory. DVD-R/RW drives and USB ports are available for data exchange.

In room A4 2-220 (BSD room 2, RED) there are 16 workstations with Intel Core i7 CPU, among others. The BSD-UNIX FreeBSD 9.3 operating system is installed on these devices. There are very powerful Intel Core i7 devices with 3.4 GHz and 32 GB main memory. There are 4 dual-monitor setups available. CD/DVD-R/RW drives and USB ports are available for data exchange. There is also a scanner.

In room A4 2-202 (BSD room 3, GREEN) there are 8 Apple Macintosh workstations (Mac mini, iMac) with various Intel CPUs. The BSD-UNIX FreeBSD 9.3 and macOS 10.12 ('Sierra') operating systems are installed on these devices in a dual-boot setup. DVD-R/RW drives and USB ports are available for data exchange.

Room A4 2-215 (SUN room, VIOLET) contains 20 Sun Ultra 20 workstations, on which the BSD-UNIX FreeBSD 9.3 operating system is installed. Hardware equipment: AMD Opteron Dual Core CPU with 2.6 GHz clock frequency, 4 GB main memory. CD/DVD-R/RW drives and USB ports are available for data exchange.

In room A4 2-208 (disposal room, ORANGE) there are 4 Apple iMac workstations with Intel Core i5 CPU and 2 with Intel Core i7. The operating system BSD-UNIX FreeBSD 9.3 and macOS 10.12 ('Sierra') are installed on these devices in a dual-boot setup. Applications such as Microsoft Office with Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Eclipse, iMovie and others are installed. USB connection options are available for data exchange.

In many of ARBI's workspaces there are places to connect private notebooks. There, devices can be connected to the network by cable after registering the MAC address of the network card of the respective device in room A4-2-206. The university's wireless LAN (WLAN) can be used via the central IT services. Information is available there (Infopoint in the entrance area of the Central Library).

Further information and assistance can be requested via the following email addresses:

Unix.support@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE

Mac.support@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE

Access to the computer rooms is possible with a door card. Computing Science students can apply for this at the ARBI in room A4 2-207, where a replacement card can also be obtained if lost. Access to almost all computer systems is also possible at weekends or late in the evening. An access chip is required for this, further information can be obtained from the ARBI. At the end of your studies, the door card must be returned to room A4 2-207.

In rooms of the ARBI that are not generally accessible, there are several service computers such as network routers, file servers, email servers, news servers, domain name servers, etc., which together with the network cables from the individual computers form a network. The main network protocols (agreements on the exchange of data packets between different computers) used are the TCP/IP protocol family: TELNET, FTP, SSH, SMTP, IMAP, POP3, NNTP, NFS, DNS and many more.

In addition to the programmes provided by the manufacturer, there is a wide range of other programmes (/usr/local software). Most of the programmes are documented by so-called manual pages. Larger programme systems sometimes have their own forms of documentation or online help. Documentation can also be accessed via the World Wide Web (WWW).

The so-called X Window System, version 11, is used as the environment for displaying results on the display device and for processing user input via keyboard and mouse. Many computers in the ARBI network not only utilise services from servers, but also provide services to other computers (use of software via remote login or remote X-Display). It is therefore important that the devices are not unnecessarily overloaded or even switched off.

The ARBI workstations are mostly switched off to save energy. If necessary, a workstation computer can be switched on by briefly pressing the power switch (on the device itself and, if necessary, on the monitor). If the computer is already switched on, it may be necessary to switch the monitor's energy-saving function: in general, pressing the mouse or keyboard is sufficient to wake up a monitor from the energy-saving function. After finishing work with a computer, the power management of the ARBI computer decides whether to switch off a computer. It is therefore important never to switch off the ARBI computers yourself. The monitors must also not be switched off using the main switch. If necessary, special tasks and services are assigned to the computers, the provision of which would be disrupted if they were switched off manually. Therefore, the computers must never be switched off manually.

In the case of devices with a defect or fault, please never attempt to repair them yourself, but always submit a fault report to ARBI staff. The fault report can also be submitted by email to Lehners@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE. Please state as precisely as possible the type of defect or fault and the device that is defective or faulty.

Some of the devices have keyboards with US-American or German multinational key arrangements. In general, most characters can be accessed by simply pressing a key or in combination with the Shift key (first and second key level). A third or fourth key level (together with the Shift key) can be reached by pressing the Compose-Character, Additional or Group Shift or AltGr key.

On German multinational keyboards, the third and fourth key levels are used to generate the additional characters printed on the keycaps. On US keyboards, the third and fourth key levels can be used to generate the umlauts and ß, among others. The umlauts are located on the A, O, U and ß on S keys.

The X-Window system used in the devices allows all keys to be completely reprogrammed by the user. The reprogramming is only valid until the end of the respective X session.