FAQ

Frequently asked questions

I can not find the g77 Compiler

The g77 is a very old compiler and development has been stop before years (around 2005). Support for recent Linux distributions has also been withdrawn. It has been replaced by gfortran.

If you are still using g77 you should test you code with 'gfortran' or the Intel 'ifort'. Both are full Fortran 95 Compiler which can handle old Fortran 77 code in fixed format. The commercial ifort should give you the best performance when using optimization. In general most code can be ported without bigger changes. If you need assistance getting your code to work, contact us through trouble@th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de.

Can not login (trough X) or (Web)mail does not work

This often happens if your disk space is full and the requiered files can not be written. You can fix this with login in through a text console (Strg-Alt-F1) or ssh and deleting some files. If you constantly run in to low disk space, ask the administrator to increase the disk space. For temporary data the global scratch directories are recommended. Check your free disk space regularly with the command 'df'.

Webmail does not work

The correct function of the Webmail interface depends on two files in your public_html directory. These are public_html/cgi-bin/php and public_html/webmail. If one of this is missing you will get some error messages. To fix this problem do a ssh login or open a terminal from your desktop and execute the command webmail-enable. This should fix the problem.

I cannot see my quota

There is no quota system any more. You have your own volume on the nfs server. You can check this with 'df'. The free space in your home, is your personal free space.

Where is pine on the Ubuntu installations?

The short version: Pine development has stopped, the successor is now called alpine. They have to change the name because pine is a registered trademark and the associated license does not permit distribution of binary packages. If you want more information, have a look on their homepage [1]

Firefox and Thunderbird complain about running elsewhere

This is not a bug, this is a feature. This prevents running Firefox and Thunderbird with the the same profile on different hosts. If your computer crashes or the power fails these programs are not closed cleanly, the lock files remain and prevents firefox/thunderbird from starting.

This can simply fixed by deleting the lock files. For security reason these programs use a random directory name for the profile.

The files are:

 ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/.parentlock
 ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/lock
 ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/.parentlock
 ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/lock

The RANDOM_CHARS subdirectory is easy to find, because unter normal circumstances there is only a single subdirectory.

Note: To read this instruction you can use a different browser installed on our system, e.g. konqueror or epiphany, even the text mode browser lynx works fine.

Toolbars, navigation, history or forms are not working in Firefox

This problem can occur after a crash. It can easily be solved by deleting two files:

  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/places.sqlite
  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/places.sqlite.journal

The database is reconstructed from the latest bookmarks backup. Detailed information can be found here:

kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox

You may also encounter problems with forms and the search field. Then the following files are corrupted:

  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/formhistory.sqlite
  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/formhistory.dat

Please delete them. You will loose the history information but get a working browser.

Firefox helds that it hasn't been used for a long time

Under certain cases firefox show a text in the bottom line that it hasn't been used for a long time and asks to reset your configuration. In most cases this is not true and you don't want to reset your configuration. The problem is a stale lock file. Please close firefox and remove the following file:

~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/.parentlock