“MIT Athena: Not Dead Yet”, they said back in 2008. 18 years later and 42 years after the start of Project Athena, somehow Athena is still (barely) alive and kicking, thanks to Nixathena!
Nixathena is a new SIPB project to turn any computer into an Athena workstation running modern NixOS. It’s intended to replace Debathena, which hasn’t been updated since Ubuntu 18.04. You can find the features list, screenshots, and code on the MIT Forgejo.
During the pandemic, MIT permanently removed the Athena clusters around campus, which were no longer widely used since everyone just has their own laptops. But now, you can experience an Athena cluster once again in the SIPB office!
If you’re an MIT student and interested in helping out with Nixathena, join the SIPB modern-athena channel. In particular we need people to try out and test Nixathena, so no prior knowledge about NixOS or Athena is necessary.