Workshop

Understanding file systems

There is no formal workshop this week but I recommend setting yourself up to work from your own machine when off campus.

For the workshops themselves, you will be using the University computers in R012 and everything you need is already installed.

Preparing your own machine to work from home will give you more flexibility and is worth doing before you feel any time pressure.

💻 Set up the Virtual Desktop. I recommend working on the University computers for this work. You can still work from home by using the Virtual Desktop Service. The VDS allows you to log on to a university computer from your own computer. It means you can access all software and filestores. When using the VDS for R and RStudio, it usually makes sense to use other software - such as a browser or file explorer - also through the VDS. Go to the Virtual Desktop Service for set up instructions.

If you are confident in your ability to set up your own machine, you need:
- to know there is a difference between R and RStudio
- Install R and Rstudio
- to us R 4.6 and RStudio 2026.10.0 “Blue Mistflower”
- to be certain you are actually using R 4.6 - it is written in the top edge of the console window. By default RStudio uses the latest version on R on your machine.
It is possible to access all your files on your university account without using the VDS. For example, if you want to work on uni machines at uni and your machine at home. You can best do this by Connecting to a filestore (“Mapping a Drive”). If you store everything on google drive you can also read/write to that like any other drive using google drive app.

Set up the Virtual Desktop Service NOW even if you plan to use your own machine. This means you will always have that option if your own set up causes a problem.

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title: "Workshop"
subtitle: "Understanding file systems"
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---

There is no formal workshop this week but I recommend setting yourself up to
work from your own machine when off campus.

For the workshops themselves, you will be using the University computers in R012
and everything you need is already installed.

Preparing your own machine to work from home will give you more flexibility and
is worth doing before you feel any time pressure.

1.  💻 Set up the Virtual Desktop. I recommend working on the University
    computers for this work. You can still work from home by using the [Virtual
    Desktop Service](https://www.york.ac.uk/it-services/tools/vds/). The VDS
    allows you to log on to a university computer from your own computer. It
    means you can access all software and filestores. When using the VDS for R
    and RStudio, it usually makes sense to use other software - such as a
    browser or file explorer - also through the VDS. Go to the [Virtual Desktop
    Service](https://www.york.ac.uk/it-services/tools/vds/) for set up
    instructions.

    If you are confident in your ability to set up your own machine, you need:

    - to know there is a [difference between R and
      RStudio](https://3mmarand.github.io/comp4biosci/about-R-and-RStudio.html)
    - [Install R and
      Rstudio](https://3mmarand.github.io/comp4biosci/about-R-and-RStudio.html#installing-r-and-rstudio)
    - to us R 4.6 and RStudio 2026.10.0 "Blue Mistflower"
    - to be certain you are actually using R 4.6 - it is written in the top edge
      of the console window. By default RStudio uses the *latest* version on R
      on your machine.

    It is possible to access all your files on your university account without
    using the VDS. For example, if you want to work on uni machines at uni and
    your machine at home. You can best do this by [Connecting to a filestore
    ("Mapping a
    Drive")](https://support.york.ac.uk/s/topic/0TO4K000000lA5ZWAU/filestores).
    If you store everything on google drive you can also read/write to that like
    any other drive using google drive app.

Set up the [Virtual Desktop
Service](https://www.york.ac.uk/it-services/tools/vds/) NOW even if you plan to
use your own machine. This means you will always have that option if your own
set up causes a problem.