Software Survey Results

Presented here are the results from the CXC Software User Survey conducted in March 2003. Each of 108 anonymous respondents was assigned a number in order to correlate answers within the survey. Note that a set a numbers was skipped in this process, resulting in comments being numbered up to "126"; this error in no way affects the survey results.

Contents:

• User Information
• CIAO Tools and Applications
• CIAO Documentation
• Image Display Applications
• Portable Systems
• Web Browsers
• Memory
• Software Installation
• Proposal Tools and Applications

User Information

Total number of respondents: 108

How they described themselves:

• Undergraduate Student: 2
• Graduate Student: 21
• Post-doctoral Researcher: 23
• Astronomer who occasionally works in X-Rays: 3
• X-Ray Astronomer: 39
• Other: 20 (List)

Level of experience with scientific analysis software:

• New User: 8
• Occasional User: 11
• Regular User: 46
• Expert User: 36

CIAO Tools and Applications

What kinds of CIAO analysis tasks do you perform most often?

Can you easily perform these tasks using CIAO?

• Yes: 52
• Sometimes: 46
• No: 5

Responses: Tasks users cannot easily do now.

How often do you use the following CIAO command-line tools, scripts, or applications?

Responses: Other command-line tools used often.
These responses have also been collected into the following table:

How often do you use the following packages to analyze Chandra data?

Responses:

• CIAO features users liked best.
• CIAO features that should be added or improved.
• CIAO features users liked the least.

How do you compare using CIAO to other astronomical analysis systems?

Responses: Features that make other data analysis packages easier to use than CIAO.

CIAO Documentation

Do you read any of the following CIAO documents?

How do you rate the following with regard to documentation?

Responses:

• CIAO documentation features that users liked best.
• CIAO documentation features which are missing or need improvement.

Image Display Applications

How often do you use the following image display applications? (Free software)

How often do you use the following image display applications? (Commercial software)

Responses:

• Can you make publication quality images in a journal's desired format?
• Image display features which are missing.
• Image display features users like the most.
• Image display features users like the least.
• Reasons for using one particular image display application.

Current and Future Portable Systems

Window Managers / Desktops

Which window manager/desktop do you use now?
Which will you use in the next year?

Workstations

• Sun Sparc/Solaris

  Which version of Solaris do you use now?
  Which will you use in the next year?

  	Currently	In the next year
  Solaris 2.6	9	7
  Solaris 7	4	2
  Solaris 8	39	31
  Solaris 9	1	10
  Other (List)	4	3

• Compaq Alpha / Tru64 Unix

  Which version of the OS do you use now?
  Which will you use in the next year?

  	Currently	In the next year
  Compaq Tru64 Unix 4.0f	4	3
  Compaq Tru64 Unix 5.0	2	1
  Compaq Tru64 Unix 5.1	2	3
  Other Tru64 version	0	0
  Alpha linux	0	0

PC Systems

• PC-Linux (x86)

  Which version of the PC-Linux (x86) OS do you use now?
  Which will you use in the next year?

  	Currently	In the next year
  Redhat 6.2	19	13
  Redhat 8.0	24	42
  SuSE 7.x	2	3
  SuSE 8.x	2	3
  Debian 2.x	9	5
  Debian 3.0	8	13
  Mandrake 8.x	2	1
  Mandrake 9.0	2	3
  Slackware 8.0	1	1
  Other (List)	17	11

• Apple PowerPC (G3-G4)

  Interested in a PowerPC port?

  • Yes: 31
  • No: 22

  Which version of the OS do you use now?
  Which will you use in the next year?

  	Currently	In the next year
  Mac OS 10.2	23	31
  Linux PPC	0	0

• Windows XX

  Interested in a Windows port?

  • Yes: 12
  • No: 51

  Which version of the OS do you use now?
  Which will you use in the next year?

  	Currently	In the next year
  Windows 2000	7	4
  Windows XP Pro	8	10
  Other (List)	4	4

Web Browsers

Which browser do you use now?
Which will you use in the next year?

Memory

How much memory do you have available?
How much will you have in the next year?

Software Installation

What kind of installation do you generally use?

• Individual: 28
• System Manager: 36
• Both: 35

What pieces of software are you generally installing?

• ATOMDB: 44
• CALDB: 70
• CIAO: 78
• NRA: 32

Proposal Tools and Applications

How often do you use the followin Proposal Tools?
For each, indicate if you use the web or the portable version.