The CS department has a long standing culture of pooling computing resources. Here are are a few operational details: - A complete list of systems can be found in ~info/systems ( or www.cs.colostate.edu/~info/machines ). - The default login access list for most department linux systems can be summarized in terms of two sets: 1) systems open to all department users, and 2) systems open only to researchers. The "researchers" set is defined as all CS users excluding most undergraduates. - Most lab machines are purchased with undergraduate CNS Technology Fees. Under the rules for those fees, researchers are allowed to use the equipment provided such use does not interfere in any way with undergraduate use of the machines. - Background use of anothers's desktop machine is allowed, provided such use does not interfere in any way with the desktop user's use. (But people rarely if ever log into faculty desktops unless invited.) - In rare cases, researchers have purchased special purchase hardware and locked it down so only their research groups can use it. - Also in rare cases, arrangements can be made with the systems staff to allocate exclusive access to a set of machines during slack use times, Run-timing experiments over Christmas break is an example. When running background jobs it is up to the background user to work within the above context and restrictions. See the CS Systems FAQ, section 15 ( www.cs.colostate.edu/~info/faq.html#15.01 ) for a summary of tools and mechanisms to help in this process. Some examples of practices to avoid would be: - using all the cores, on a particular system (for instance causing the load average to go above 4 on a 4-core system), - using all the memory or disk-space on a particular machine, - using all the systems in a particular set of systems, such as a lab, - or causing a machine to lock or hang intermittently. If conflicts do arise, they are usually easily resolved by way of a polite request to cease the conflicting activity. In extreme or emergency situations, a desktop user or systems staff member may reboot a machine. (Though lab-users are highly discouraged to do this.) If there is a conflict on a lab machine during a class or recitation, the systems staff or instructor will kill the conflicting jobs rather than permit the class to be interrupted. You are welcome to bring conflicts to the attention of the systems staff. In practice, this culture provides a large, flexible, self-organizing pool of computing resources.