For those students which prefer to work from their own machines, we have one Dell PowerEdge Dual-Processor SC1425 server (3.0GHz/P4/1GB) available for remote login. The hostname is as follows.
vlsifarm-01.mit.edu
This machines runs standard Athena/Linux and is only available to students who are currently registered for the course. Use your Athena username and password to gain access to the servers. To determine the current load on the server, log into it and use the "w" command. This will show you who is currently using the machine and the first line indicates the average system load for the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes. If the machine is very busy (load averages above 3) you will need to make use of the 38-301 computing lab or one of the public Athena clusters.
Using the Vlsifarms from a Linux Machine
Linux distributions almost always include a ssh client and X-windows server, so it should be relatively easy to use the vlsifarm. Simply log into the servers using the "ssh" command. To check that X-windows is working execute "xcalc" and verify that the simple X-windows calculator appears. You may also want to setup an AFS client on your machine so that you can directly access the content in the 6.375 course locker and in your Athena home directory. This enables you to use your favorite local text editor instead of running emacs on the vlsifarm over ssh (which can sometimes be a bit slow).