From hepnet.hepix Mon Feb 21 18:45:53 1994
Newsgroups: hepnet.hepix
Path: dxcern!cnswalan!alan
From: alan@cnswalan.cern.ch (Alan Silverman)
Subject: Frequently Asked Questions
Message-ID: <1994Feb18.141242.16275@dxcern.cern.ch>
Sender: alan@cnswalan (Alan Silverman)
Organization: CERN European Lab for Particle Physics
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 14:12:42 GMT
Lines: 163

                     HEPIX Frequently Asked Questions
                     ================================
                     

This FAQ will try to inform readers what HEPiX is, what it is currently 
doing, how the reader can obtain more information and how he or she can 
participate. Suggestions for more (or fewer) questions should be addressed
to Alan Silverman, E-mail address alan@vxcern.cern.ch. We will try to post
this at regular intervals and keep it as up-to-date as possible.

MAJOR CHANGES SINCE LAST ISSUE
------------------------------
First details on the HEPiX meeting to be held in conjunction with CHEP94
and the Autumn European meeting.
How to access the Minutes of the October '93 Pisa meeting and a report of the
October '93 SLAC meeting via WWW.


Q: What is HEPiX and when did it start?
A: HEPiX is an international group of UNIX users and system administrators 
   working in cooperating High Energy Physics institutions. The initial focus 
   of the group was to share experiences, influence vendors and standards 
   bodies and to investigate solutions to those problems which impede the 
   use of Unix for mainstream work at the member institutions. Currently less 
   emphasis is being placed on influencing outside bodies and more on the 
   sharing of experiences, code and documentation and on a study of the 
   possibility of providing a common UNIX environment for HEP users. 
   

Q: Who are the members and who can join?
A: The group is intended for High Energy Physics institutes and academic
   establishments concerned with High Energy Physics. But its activities 
   are not closed and anyone is welcome to participate in its meetings, 
   its news groups, and so on. However, the activities of the group should
   remain focused on HEP since there are many other forum where general 
   UNIX topics are covered. Currently, there are over 180 names on the
   mailing list plus an unknown number who subscribe to the news group.
   

Q: How can someone join?
A: There is no formal procedure to join. All activities are publicised via
   an electronic mail list and a Usenet news group. Normally the same 
   information should appear in both channels via some automatic 
   procedures and so you may decide on one or the other method as you 
   prefer. 
   
   To subscribe to the mail list, send a message to hepix-request@hepnet 
   (BITNET) or hepnet::hepix-request (ES-DECnet) or 
   hepix-request@hepnet.hep.net (Internet) where the first line of your 
   message should be SUBSCRIBE.  To cancel your subscription send a 
   message with the first line SIGNOFF.  The subject line and any body 
   lines but the first are ignored. You will get all messages in the 
   discussion group mailed to the address from which you sent the request.
   
   If you prefer to participate in the HEPIX discussion via netnews, 
   subscribe to the newsgroup hepnet.hepix.

   To obtain a copy of the mailing list, annotated with the names of the
   subscribers, send a message to one of the following --
   - SMTP E-mail users - mail to HEPIX-REQUEST@hepnet.hep.net where the
     subject line contents are immaterial and the message contents should
     be a single word   REVIEW
   - BITNET E-mail users - mail to listserv@hepnet.bitnet where the subject
     line is immaterial and the message contents should be a single line
     REVIEW HEPIX
   Please note that this service is for information only and the list should
   not be (mis)used for any commercial or other purpose.   


Q: What does HEPiX actually do?
A: At its second meeting, HEPiX was restructured into subgroups. 
   There are now European and North American chapters and several working 
   groups. Each chapter organised regional meetings in Spring 1993 and will 
   organise further meetings in the Autumn (Fall). Around each "Computers in 
   High Energy Physics" (CHEP) Conference, HEPiX will organise a world-wide 
   meeting; the next CHEP should be in the US in Spring 1994 so a HEPiX 
   meeting can be expected then. 
   
   The various chapters and their coordinators are listed below --
   European Coordination - Alan Silverman, CERN, E-mail - 
              ALAN@VXCERN.CERN.CH
   North American Coordination - Judy Nicholls, FNAL, E-mail - 
              NICHOLLS@FNAL.GOV
              
   Other Working groups formed were - 
   Common HEP UNIX Environment - an investigation to study if some form of
   common working environment could be produced among HEP UNIX sites.  
   Coordinator - Wolfgang Friebel, DESY, E-mail friebel@ifh.de.
   This group has produced some initial scripts for testing. Contact the
   Coordinator for more information.
   
   Documentation Collections - An attempt to make available to HEPiX 
   members all documentation on the use of UNIX in HEP which might be of 
   interest. Coordinator - Judy Richards, CERN, E-mail JUDY@CERNVM.CERN.CH.
   
   Tools Database - a database of pointers to UNIX-based tools and 
   utilities which are of particular interest to HEP users. Currently being
   re-thought. 
  
   
   NQS Extensions - a study if some merging of popular NQS extensions can 
   be performed. Coordinator - John O'Neall, IN2P3, E-mail 
                 jon@frcpn11.in2p3.fr.
   This group has now completed its investigation and published its results.
   If you would like a copy use anonymous ftp to node ccpnhp.in2p3.fr and then
         cd pub/unix_batch
         get ubq2.ps      # questionnaire results (all nine replies)
         get ubat2.ps     # slides of comparison of batch systems

Q: How can someone participate?
   To participate in any of the discussions, either contribute an article 
   to the Usenet hepnet.hepix newsgroup in the normal way or send your 
   article to the electronic mail address - hepix@hepnet.hep.net 
   (Internet), hepix@hepnet (BITNET), or hepnet::hepix (ES-DECnet).

   Discussion topics are archived on the node hepnet.hep.net and can be
   accessed via anonymous ftp in the files /hepix/email/199y/199y-mm
   where y is the last digit of the year and mm is the month (1 to 12).
   
   To participate in a particular meeting, just sign up to attend the 
   meeting as advertised in the newsgroup or in the mailing from the mail 
   list.
   
   To participate in one or more of the working groups (and contributions 
   are more than welcome), contact the appropriate coordinator.
  
  
Q: When are the next meetings?
A: The next meeting will be a world-wide meeting to be held in conjunction
   with CHEP94 (Computing in High Energy Physics) conference in San Francisco
   in April. The HEPiX meeting will be held in the Lawrence Berkeley
   Laboratory (LBL) on Thursday and Friday 28th and 28th April. Details are
   currently being put together and all offers of talks, site reports, 
   presentations should be sent to Judy Nicholls or Alan Silverman.

   The next European meeting will be during the month of October in
   Paris. More precise details will be published later.
 

Q: How can one obtain information from previous meetings?
A: The minutes of the Spring 1993 North American meeting, held at CEBAF 
   in March, can be obtained via anonymous ftp from ftp.cebaf.gov in the
   file pub/HEPiX/minutes (or minutes.ps if you prefer). 

   The minutes of the Spring 1993 European meeting, held at NIKHEF in April,
   can be obtained via anonymous ftp from asis01.cern.ch in the file 
   pub/hepix/nikhef.ps or in node ftp.nikhef.nl in file 
   /pub/hepmix/hepix-minutes.ps or by WWW using the path 
   HEP Laboratories - NIKHEF - meetings - HEPIX

   The minutes of the Autumn 1993 European meeting in Pisa and a report on
   the Fall 93 meeting in SLAC can be obtained via WWW from the HEPIX home
   page - http://info.cern.ch./hepix/Overview.html.

Q: How can someone find out more about HEPiX?
A: Subscribe to the newsgroup or electronic mail list described above.


                                           Alan Silverman
                                           HEPiX European Coordinator
                                           
                                           18 February 1994


