ETIQUETTE

1. You usually share your computer with other people. You must ensure that your program doesn't affect others too much. So:
   • Do not start many instances of the same program
   • If your program is particularly resource hungry start it at night (and be sure it is finished the next morning).
   • If your program must run for a long time, build it so that it can be stopped in the morning and restarted at night from the stop point: it's a useful exercise and moreover it will make your program more robust against shutdowns, power failures, etc.
   • Do not leave open sessions for hours while you're doing something else.
   • Do not ask a friend for her/his account so that you can start you program twice under different usernames.
   • The security of the whole system depends on security of single accounts: use 8 characters for password and put at least a punctuation character in it. Do not share passwords with others.

2. Disk space is a limited resource, again shared with others. So:
   • Do not ask for disk space extensions because you're too lazy to clean up your directories.
   • Do not leave huge mail messages in the system mailbox.

3. The Local Area Network band is limited, and is shared with others:
   • If your program reads or writes huge files, be sure it's running on the same computer to which the disk is physically connected, so that you don't transfer data through the network (your program will also run faster !).

4. The Wide Area Network band is limited, and shared with all the world.
   • Do not download huge files if you don't actually need them.
   • Try to download files from nodes which are closest.
   • Do not open X-window sessions with remote nodes, if you don't need it.
   • If you want to let other peoples access your files via ftp, collect them together with 'tar' and then compress the file with 'gzip'.

5. Printouts are costly:
   • Do not print a copy of your document or program any time you make a small modification.
   • Verify that the text you're printing comes out correctly, so that you don't throw away many sheets of paper.
   • Go and collect your printouts after printing.

6. Human resources are scarce:
   • Read the manual and the on-line documentation files and use the command man before asking for help.

7. Electronic Mail must be used in the right way:
   • Do not use unpolite language in your messages or send messages with excessively personal content. A simple transmission error or mistyped address will cause the sending of the message to several system administrators all over the Net.
   • Check the configuration of your mail program in order to avoid that strange character sets or formats are used.
   • Avoid non-ASCII "attachments" to mail messages and, if this is not possible, check with your correspondant that he can read the attachment before sending it.
   • Avoid long attachment files: many mailers are not able to manage big messages.