<< CosmoTeaching

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Conditions of virtual machine for exams

This page is intended for inclusion in course pages.

Starting in 2025, the exam will be conducted on a individual computer for each student; the computer will run on a Debian GNU/Linux operating system with no internet connection. This computer will run a (purely local) WIMS server with the statistically same set of exercises as you have available during the semester.

• differences wrt exercises
  • stronger prerequisite relation between exercises - you must do the easier exercises before being allowed to try the harder ones
  • more severe scoring system: instead of
  • no internet acccess
  • no access to hand calculators, mobile phones, laptops, or other private computers (mobile phone use OK if you are taking a break away from your screen)
  • fresh shell account - no access to personal notes or scripts; the lecture pdfs will be available in your account
  • you will have the usual FOSS tools: emacs, vim, bash, less, grep, awk, sed, octave, python, numpy, scipy, maxima, gcc, gfortran
  • you will have these files in your guest shell account with md5sums:
    • c28c60cf055691af625d65cfc304f899 cosmdist-v0.3.12-5-g0b6b5d5.tar.gz
    • 2d8251ce4bfe04056677aad8852af83a Cosmology_30h_lecture.pdf
    • 286829f6921ea62e18327fcd428e5d00 Cosmic_topology.pdf
    • 200b400f0704b6dfb04fef366f98f266 gr_140407.pdf
    • 5a053da1fed410dda159fe7c7a077f72 SI_math_constants
    • 15b0cb0a9dbc4508277f5513a94290e6 sr_240412.pdf
  • physics/astro/maths constants: exact: metre-to-second conversion (p129) 1 s = 299792458 m; 1 AU = 149597870700 m; approximate: π 3.14159265359 - these are given in the file SI_math_constants
  • cheap powerful technology: you may bring in blank paper and some pens/pencils
  • you will need to "register" a new (temporary) account in the WIMS class
  • you will need to show the examiner the "My Score" page when you are satisfied with your grade and ready to have your score written to usosweb.

An example of the software versions is the following, though the actual versions may be more recent:

$ dpkg -l |awk '{print $1,$2,$3}' |grep -E " (octave|maxima|python3(|-numpy|-scipy)|emacs|vim-tiny|xpdf|evince|gcc|gfortran) "
ii emacs 1:28.2+1-15+deb12u4
ii evince 43.1-2+b1
ii gcc 4:12.2.0-3
ii gfortran 4:12.2.0-3
ii maxima 5.46.0-11
ii octave 7.3.0-2
ii python3 3.11.2-1+b1
ii python3-numpy 1:1.24.2-1+deb12u1
ii python3-scipy 1.10.1-2
ii vim-tiny 2:9.0.1378-2+deb12u2
ii xpdf 3.04+git20220601-1+b2

-- BoudRoukema - 15 Apr 2025