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[GEMPAK #ZPH-543999]: Using Technology for High School

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  • Subject: [GEMPAK #ZPH-543999]: Using Technology for High School
  • Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 13:48:47 -0600
Hi Michael,

GEMPAK and AWIPS II are separate but related software packages.  GEMPAK is also 
called NAWIPS/GEMPAK since it was developed for and is used by NCEP National 
Centers (National Hurricane Center, Ocean Prediction Center, etc.).  This 
version of NAWIPS/GEMPAK is updated and released by Unidata for the university 
and research community.

With NCEP's planned migration from NAWIPS/GEMPAK to AWIPS2, Unidata is 
preparing our community of GEMPAK users for migration to AWIPS2, but this 
process will be slow and careful, for example AWIPS2 currently is only 
supported on Red Hat v5 (and equivalent CentOS releases), 32-bit only for the 
data server, 32 or 64 bit for the GUI.  AWIPS2 is not ready for a live-use 
classroom-wide installation on laptops yet.

But NAWIPS/GEMPAK is suitable for such a setup, but the workstations must be 
Unix or Linux based.  Linux offers the simplest installation.  Mac OSX is more 
complicated.

Each workstation would need GEMPAK installed unless you have available a 
networked mount point, such a /home/, where all of your student accounts home 
directories would be.  With such a setup, you only need GEMPAK installed on one 
machine, and students could then source the environmental variable file 
Gemenviron (see instructions here: 
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/GEMPAK/Install_GEMPAK.html ), and 
then run command line and GUI programs such as "gdplot2" and "nmap2". You would 
also need to have an LDM installation to pull live data from the IDD 
(instructions for that: 
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/GEMPAK/configuration.html )

-Michael James
Unidata User Support




> Gempak Support,
> 
> I am considering introducing my high school weather students to this
> technology for class labs, but as I understand, GEMPAK migrated to AWIPS?
> 
> Which software should I introduce my students to?  Are both available?
> Please consider server sizing and individual work station requirements
> (each student laptop carries 1gb ram, but very little storage for
> security and displinary considerations).  Our student laptops are not
> set up with roaming profiles, so I imagine every workstation would need
> to have it installed?
> 
> Please let me know any other considerations that I have not addressed
> relative to computer usage, and help or support for students as they
> use the software.
> 
> Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
> 
> Michael
> High School Weather Instructor
> 
> 

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: ZPH-543999
Department: Support GEMPAK
Priority: Normal
Status: Open