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Chapter 1: Introduction
The on-site UNIX[3] computer systems at Fermilab are used for a wide range of tasks, including general purpose interactive use, batch jobs, farms[4], and data acquisition systems, among other things. In order to most efficiently accommodate the needs of the Fermilab user community, the Computing Division provides a single, operating system-independent UNIX environment known as the Fermi UNIX Environment, or FUE.
The Fermi UNIX Environment (FUE) is a set of products installed on most UNIX systems at Fermilab that defines the computing environment. One of the main goals of FUE is to provide as much as possible the same environment on the different UNIX platforms. A second important goal is to provide a standard product support methodology.
The methodology and infrastructure for product support and distribution under FUE is provided via a software support toolkit called UNIX Product Support (UPS). UPS was developed with the goal of providing a uniform and consistent interface for the management, distribution, installation and use of all the supported UNIX software. The UPS methodology is fully described in UNIX Product Methodology at Fermilab, document number GU0014. Chapter 10 of the present document describes the operations that installers and end users of the supported software need to know how to perform. Appendix B provides an overview of UPS to supplement the information in Chapter 10.
FUE consists of three parts:
UNIX systems at the lab or at users' home institutions can be set up to be FUE-compliant. There are different levels of FUE compliance available; these levels are described in GU0014.