Companion CD-ROM: unsw/common directory

The unsw/common directory contains information that applies to the Digital Systems Laboratory in general, or to more than one course using that Laboratory. You should take the time to browse through this information, as you will find it useful for your laboratory work.

You should pay particular attention to a number of documents. In particular, it is difficult to be successfully complete your work without understanding how the tools work. For that reason, you should take the time to read through [PDF] An Introduction to the GNU Assembler, [PDF] An Introduction to the GNU Compiler, [PDF] An Introduction to the GNU Debugger and [PDF] An Introduction to Komodo. Please note that you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader (or another PDF viewer) on your computer to read these documents.

You can also set up your computer’s environment to be similar to the one in the Digital Systems Laboratory. In fact, the files made available on this CD-ROM are the ones used in the Laboratory. Instruction are provided for setting up your Linux environment and for setting up your Microsoft Windows environment.

The term computer environment, as used in this context, simply means the “look and feel” of the software. In other words, it involves things like the settings you should change in the editor, the icons on your desktop and configuration files for the shell. Some of these things tend to be very subjective and personal (everyone has their own preference regarding colours, for example); the setup documents have been written to take this into account.

Directory Contents

[Root] CD-ROM Root Directory
[Dir] unsw: Information specific to the Digital Systems Laboratory
[Dir] common: Information for all courses using the Laboratory   This is the current directory
[Dir] labsetup-linux: Files needed to create the Linux environment
[Dir] labsetup-win32: Files needed to create the Microsoft Windows environment
[File] README.html: The file you are currently reading
[File] assembler-intro.pdf: An Introduction to the GNU Assembler
[File] compiler-intro.pdf: An Introduction to the GNU Compiler
[File] gdb-intro.pdf: An Introduction to the GNU Debugger
[File] komodo-intro.pdf: An Introduction to Komodo
[File] armv4t-instruction-set.pdf: ARMv4T Partial Instruction Set Summary, a summary of the most commonly-used ARM instructions
[File] labsetup-linux.html: Information on how to set up your Linux environment
[File] labsetup-win32.html: Information on how to set up your Microsoft Windows environment
[File] computer-spec.html: Minimum computer specification for installing software on this CD-ROM
[File] cdrom-mounting.html: How to mount, unmount and use this CD-ROM under Linux and Microsoft Windows
[File] bibliography.html: Useful books and other resources