gpss

Gaussian process material for summer school teaching.

Software and infrastructure (for Data Science Africa)

Below are instructions and advice for deploying the DSA summer school.

Infrastructure

In previous years we've had some trouble with the bandwidth available both to the Internet and locally between computers. It is maybe best to develop the summer school under the assumption that there is no network, and any that exists we need to utilise when possible.

Hardware to take:

• memory sticks for sneakernet to distribute everything. In particular anaconda is 474Mb (need a copy for windows and linux)
• wifi access point
• laptops (to run servers on)
• cables (ethernet, etc)
• video recording equipment

Server Software

Installing apache

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc apache2-utils

more info here.

Website

I ran an apache2 server on my laptop, and created a small webpage from which people can

• download anaconda
• download the jupyter notebooks and associated datafiles
• download the lecture slides
• create a new folder for the jupyter notebook (a small flask python script did this)
• ran the jupyter server (from a different user account to minimise security issues)

I've put some of last year's files up on the repo (see inside dsa2016_hosted_files). I've not included the anaconda installers or these two files (as they're too large for a git repo):

• malaria-classification-example.npz
• twitter_data.txt This years should go in dsa2017_hosted_files. Please don't put anything over 10Mb in there as we don't want to bloat the repo too much.

I also wrote a small python script (called server.py) that created a new folder for the jupyter notebooks, and copies in all the files (from the source_ipython folder) the student will need (data csv files etc).

To start the ipython server, go to the 'ipython' folder and run,

#I found this might be necessary if you've switched users.
#export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="" 
jupyter notebook --no-browser --ip="*"

To start the little server, go to the home directory and run,

python server.py

Make sure apache2 is running. You'll also need to change the link in remoteipython.html.

sudo service apache2 restart

Switching to dsa16 account

su dsa16
[enter password]

Information for students

Prior to the school starting we need to provide people with:

• the notebooks and data files
• anaconda links
• how to get set up, get jupyter running, etc

Questions

• Which version of python are we using?
• How do we distribute modules (i.e. sods, GPy) people might need.
• We're assuming most computers are going to be laptops (and thus connect via wifi)
• If we're using our own hotspot, will people not be connected to the internet at all? (I'm thinking last year people probably downloaded the sods data over the 'net when they first do the import).

Camera recording equipment

Parts lists

• benq projector

• and kettle cable

• pearl video storage unit

• pearl power supply (usually in same box) large+flat

• kettle cable

• short hdmi cable from splitter to pearl box

• long hdmi cable from splitter to projector

• long hdmi cable from splitter to laptop

• splitter

• spliiter power supply (5V)

• camera (don't use the camera with the "CMOS sensor/32GB/full HD" sticker on.)

• black+white wired powersupply

• 2 wire mini-kettle 'radio' power cable to powersupply

• hdmi (female) to mini hdmi (male) adaptor [ON ORDER]

• hdmi cable from camera to pearl box [missing]

• TX sound RODELink (there are also old "Prosound" ones in a box, ignore these)

• RX sound RODELink

• microphone (usually in a small bag)

• micousb cable (connect from Pearl box to RX box to power it - so we don't need as many batteries)

• lots of AA batteries for TX

• Audio cable (at one end red+white BNC connectors at other end a 3.5mm audio jack - connect from Pearl box to RX

• Tripod

• headphones for checking audio's ok [missing]

To Add

Need headphones and another HDMI cable (there needs to be four!)

Note!

I had a chat today with Mathieu at Epiphan Pearl, who said the problem is due to HDCP encryption (copy protection) on HDMI, which apple now have - I guess it appeared in an update over the last year. Anyway - we either need to find a splitter which strips out the encryption - that's getting harder, or convert to VGA and back. It looks like that's the most reliable way. I can't see too much VGA stuff in the box, so I'm ordering a bunch more.