You can set a default printer on Debathena by either setting the PRINTER environment variable to the name of the printer (to set this for all users, consider adding it to /etc/environment), or by asking hesreq@mit.edu for a “cluster information” entry for your machine.
Setting up access controls on Debathena is documented on a separate page.
If your Athena username differs from your Debian or Ubuntu local username, the renew command will ask for the password for your local username. You can fix this with the following command:
export ATHENA_USER=andersk
where andersk is your Athena username. You will need to add this command to ~/.bashrc to make this work every time you login to your machine.
If you use either the Athena dialups or SIPB Debathena dialup servers, you will probably also want to add to your ~/.ssh/config file lines such as
Host linerva linerva.mit.edu linux linux.mit.edu athena.dialup.mit.edu GSSAPIDelegateCredentials yes User andersk
so that when you ssh to those machines, you’ll not have to specify your Athena username and will automatically forward your Kerberos tickets.