All the typical UNIX utilities for job control, file manipulation, networking (ssh, sftp, etc) and C compilation and debugging can be found on each of the department systems, as well as a lot of public domain software.

Some directories worth mentioning are:

/usr/local/bin          - contains host dependent software not part of
                          standard UNIX and may vary from machine to machine
/usr/local/X11/bin      - contains host dependent X11 software
/usr/local/contrib      - contains user contributed & maintained software

The files under the /usr/local/contrib directory are installed and maintained by faculty and students and are not supported by the department. If you would like to see a package installed in this directory, first clear it with the tech staff by sending e-mail to tech@sci.pitt.edu.  If approved, you will be asked to build the package for all department architectures; not just the one you usually use.