Swansea University Computer Society

Swansea University Computer Society, known as SUCS, is a student society at the Swansea University. It offers Computing facilities and social events to its members and other Swansea University societies.

As of 2005, SUCS had in excess of 180 members, making it one of the largest societies in the University. Its membership comprises students, postgraduates, and alumni who have earned life membership from the society. A number of other Swansea University societies are also members of SUCS and take advantage of the computer facilities and 24 hour access that the society provides.

=History=

The first documented executive committee of the society were Andy Parkman, Alex Williams and Robin O Leary in 1988. At this point in time the society was a computer science society. In the early 1990s the university computer centre donated the society an old NCR_Corporation system. This was used to provide a variety of services including a bulletin board as well as to teach students system administration skills. At the time the university had large centralised computer systems so the computer science department had no way to teach such skills. Over time the membership became less computer science focused and the society became the computer society, and then to fit student union rules at the time the Swansea University Computer Society. Since then it has gone from strength to strength, gaining its own computer room in the Students Union building and establishing its own small Computer_network of servers and workstations.

Alan Cox used one of the SUCS computers to help reproduce major problems in the early Linux TCP/IP stack. Due to the SUCS machine being on a bridged university network making extensive use of other protocols, it was seeing more unusual traffic patterns in a couple of hours that other Linux developers would see in a week.

Up until the 2.4.19 Kernel (computer science) SUCS was also name-checked in the Linux TCP/IP stack: Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4 Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039

=Constitution=

The (non-technical) [http://sucs.org/people/history.php executive committee] is made up of an annually elected president, a treasurer, a secretary and, as of 2000, a publicity officer. Additionally, an System administrator team made up of some of the most competent and experienced SUCS members exists to offer technical support and administration of the SUCS network.

The current (2005) executive committee is: *Andrew Price - President *Stephen Pike - Treasurer *Dave Arter - Secretary *William Blackstock - Publicity Officer

Elections for new executive committees are held at the end of the calendar year.

=The Room=

In 1999, The Students Union allowed SUCS to set up a room of workstations for its members. This was originally on the third floor of the Student Union building in what used to be a debating room. Since this room is inside the building, it is only accessible during the hours the whole building is open.

In the summer of 1999 the society was moved to a much smaller room on the ground floor. Despite the small size of the new room, this was generally considered to be a Good Thing since the room now had its own external door. SUCS fitted a magnetic stripe card reader and electronic lock to the door which enabled 24/7 access to the room by the members. The door was connected to an old PC through an interface designed by Justin Mitchell (A.K.A. Arthur) and controlled through software written by Justin Mitchell and Steve Hill (A.K.A. FireFury). The software was originally intended to be a stop-gap measure until something nicer looking could be written, but it stayed in service until the summer of 2005 when the card reader finally gave up. Replacement hardware was ordered and new software written by Dave Arter (A.K.A. davea).

=Computer Systems=

SUCS has a network of around ten desktop computers which are available around the clock for use by its members. These run the Red Hat-sponsored Linux distribution, Fedora Core, except for the Gateway (telecommunications) connecting it to the University network, which runs Debian Linux. Members can also access their files remotely and connect their own laptops to the network in the society s computer room. Among the services provided by the society are web space, Spam (electronic) filtered email, free laser printing, a growing library of computer related books, mailing lists and a programming advisory service.

=Community=

As well as meeting each other in the SUCS computer room (known colloquially as the room ), members also log into the society s bulletin board and talker called Milliways III (named after the restaurant in The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy). Non-members are also welcome on Milliways and a number of non-members and ex-members can often be found there. The community on Milliways III is usually quite jovial and, if approached with respect, the combination of younger members (who bring new technologies and viewpoints to the group) and older, more experienced graduates, can be very technically helpful.

Traditionally, at the end of the .

The more enthusiastic SUCS members regularly set themselves interesting programming and system development projects, both personal and group projects with other members. Examples of personal projects are personal websites, utility programs and scripts to help with SUCS administration, instant messaging software and ipod interface software development and PIC microcontroller programming.

As of August 2005 the main active SUCS group projects included:

;Marvin : A BBS/talker system designed as a successor to Milliways which is more flexible and easier to extend with scripts

;SUCS blogs : A multi-user blogging system By SUCS members, for SUCS members based on blogging systems such as wordpress, blogger, livejournal etc.

;SUCS Games Server : In Spring 2005 SUCS gained funding from the university s Student Union to set up a Games Server for use of the SUCS members. As of August 2005 this is still in a feasibility and popularity testing phase, serving games such as Counter Strike Source, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Half-Life 2 Team Deathmatch. SUCS is working closely with the LAN Gaming Society for gaming advice and publicity and the university s Library and Information Services on this project as it uses the university s network. The server computer runs freely available game servers on Debian GNU/Linux.

=See also=

*Alan Cox *University of Wales *Swansea

=External links=

*[http://www.sucs.org/ Swansea University Computer Society website] *[http://www.swansea-union.co.uk/ Swansea University Student s Union (SUSU) website] *[http://www2.swan.ac.uk/ University of Wales, Swansea website - English] *[http://www2.swan.ac.uk/cymraeg/index.htm University of Wales, Swansea website - Cymraeg (Welsh)] *[http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/6550504c2e149d35 Alan Cox talks about Linux on a busy network] - Oldest known web record of Alan talking about deploying Linux on busy network. MessageId is (this should let one find it again if Google Groups ever reorganises again)