For a Windows PC, you will want the following software: 1. Putty Available at: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html Special instructions: To get the best out of this program, you can modify several options. I suggest the following: (a) SSH tab: Make sure that enable compression is checked (b) SSH-X11 tab: Under compression, make sure that Blowfish is the first compression type selected. (c) Session tab: type the full name of the server (i.e., arcadelt.eecs.umich.edu) under server. Also, make sure that you save your session after you make these changes (so that you don't have to do it again) 2. Xming Available at: http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/ Special instructions: None 3. WinSCP Available at: http://winscp.net/eng/download.php Special instructions: Once again, I suggest saving the session so that you don't have to retype server names/passwords all the time. I also suggest that you use a different text editor than the default one in WinSCP (look through the options to select the proper program). I like to use 4. EditPlus Available at: ftp://ftp.editplus.com/epp310_en.exe Special instructions: You can also have EditPlus highlight matlab syntax and some basic autocompletions ('for' loops etc.) by downloading the style files from http://www.editplus.com/dn.cgi?matlabr12.zip. ---------------- General instructions on how to use these software to use Matlab remotely: 1) Get access to the computers in Dr. Hero's lab. Basically if you can login to any of the computers (arcadelt, palestrina, irabi, fkrick, etc.), then you are fine. If not, you will need to contact DCO and Dr. Hero to get acecss. Note that access will be through your DCO account, not your normal umich account. 2) Open Xming. 3) Open Putty and login to an appropriate server. 4) Open WinSCP and login to the same server. 5) At this point you have the option of how to use Matlab. Full graphical display (+ Matlab editor) type 'matlab' Graphical display (outside editor) type 'matlab -nodesktop' or 'matlab -nodesktop -nosplash' Text display only (only command prompt) type 'matlab -nodisplay' ------------ What I usually do is use either the text only display or the graphical display without the Matlab editor. In both of these cases, you should use WinSCP to edit files (make sure that you click 'Edit File' and not 'Open File', since the former will allow you to save directly to the server). Then you can use the command prompt to run scripts or short commands. Lastly, if you are still having problems with figures taking too long to load on the screen, you can use the following commands to print directly to a file (which you can then open with WinSCP). For example: h = figure('visible','off'); t=1:10; plot(t, sin(t), '-*'); print(h, '-depsc2', 'file.eps'); close(h); Note that you can change the option '-depsc2' to any other format, including: JPEG ('-djpeg') BMP ('dbmp') EPS ('deps2') EPS in color ('depsc2') TIFF ('-dtiff') See http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/print.html for more information on the print command. --------------------------------------------- Another useful tool is to run a script in matlab without actually opening up matlab. One way to do this is to open up a terminal, and type in matlab -nodisplay >&! matlab.out << EOF where matlab.out is a text file that will be written to the current directory. At this point, the terminal will give a matlab command line to type in commands. For example > t = 1:5; > x = sin(t); or if you wanted to run some script and save the output: > output = runGoodScript(options); > save output.mat output; at the end of what you run, make sure you exit matlab > exit And then to finish the batch command you have to type in > EOF Thus, a batch job may look like: % matlab -nodisplay >&! matlab.out << EOF > output = runGoodScript(options); > save output.mat output; > exit > EOF % I suggest two additional options here. First, to make sure that you get control in ther terminal again, you can use the "&" after the first "EOF". Moreover, to make sure that even if you lose your internet connection, the job will still run, type in "nohup" before matlab. Thus, it would like: % nohup matlab -nodisplay >&! matlab.out << EOF & > output = runGoodScript(options); > save output.mat output; > exit > EOF %