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Computer lab Sample Interview Questions:

Questions have a wide range from ustomer service, trouble shooting, technical questions to familiarity with the computer lab rules, hardware, and software.

1. Customer service:
   Demonstrate that you had some previous work experience, and if you can get a letter of recommendation from a previous employer, that will be beneficial. You should have a basic knowledge of most commonly used software and utilities like Ms Office and Acrobat.
2. Trouble shooting:
   
   • If you find a monitor’s screen black, would you assume that station is out of order?
     Try checking power/monitor.
   • Somebody can’t login. What can you suggest?
     The station has a full temp dir, or the network cable is not plugged properly (try rebooting it)
   • What can you do if somebody cannot access the user/personal drive?
     Try mapping the network drive or use an ssh client to transfer between the personal network storage area and the user station.
   • Somebody did not save a file before logging out. Can he or she recover the file?
     For Windows, it depends where the file was stored. If it was stored somewhere that keeps files preserved, we can find that file intact in its place. If the computer system erases all files after somebody logs out except in some folders like “temp”, the user may recover the files from there. If the system erases all files after logging out, we can recover the lost file only through a file recovery utility. For Linux, there is a daemon program that saves/ takes a snapshot of directories and keeps a copy of that saved copy for a certain time. The time is usually a week.
   • "I couldn’t print a document." How can you answer?
     Print size limit or file size too big. Try saving the document first then printing it.
   • ”I want to use a software like hspice or cadence, but I have to connect to a Solaris or Linux station." How do you do that?
     In Linux, just type in ssh [station name] to connect to that station. In windows, you need a utility like x-win32 that connects a windows station with Linux that gives you the power to work with your course applications from windows.
3. Technical Questions:
   
   • How do you manage printouts?
     (run->: \printserver\printername) or (you can do it from a browser: \printserver\printername)
   • What is a hostname?
     it is the name given to a certain computer and it is usually used when we are talking about connecting or retrieving files from a computer/server using the internet or some ftp/ssh protocol.
   • How do you map a drive in windows?
     Go to my computer: tools->map network drive, then give the drive a name eg., K:\ and type \[network name]\[username].
   • How do you change IP to hostname or the opposite?
   • How do you read your email in Linux ?
     Use pine or mutt (mail clients) or just a web browser.
   • Does the student Smith have read, write, or execute access to the file named file.txt? -rwx--x--x 1 Smith students 336 Feb 17 2006 file.txt
   • How do you list the available files/documents of a user in Linux?
     
   • How do you print in Linux?
     lpr [-Pprintername] mydocument (how do you print double sided ?)
   • How do you take screen shots in linux?
     Use a software like Gimp.
   • My linux station is very slow.
     You can figure out the problem by typing "top" in the command line to diagnose the overuse of memory and processor. (if the processor is overused, you can limit the process by renice -u [userid] [new priority] or renice -p [processid] [new priority]. The highest priority is 0 or 1, and the lowest priority is 19 or 20.
   • How much do you know about linux?
4. familiarity with the computer lab:
   This is just memorization task. Get a printout of the rules and software used. Understand the use of each software.

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