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C4DM2013 Software

You should ensure the following software is installed on your laptop before you arrive at the C4DM SWC 2013 bootcamp, so that we can get started promptly with the tutorials.

Shortlist

  • Bash (the particular Unix shell we’ll be using)
  • Python 2.6+ (the scripting language used in the course)
  • Mercurial and EasyMercurial (for version control)
  • A text editor (for programming!)
  • You can also save time on the day by creating an account beforehand at the SoundSoftware code site.

For the second day of the bootcamp you'll need the following Python packages:

If you run into any trouble, please send us an email: .

Installation on Linux

  • Bash, Python and Firefox are all available using the appropriate package management tool in all major Linux distributions. Please check that the Python version is 2.x, (2.6 or higher, preferrably). If not, you may need to install a newer version “by hand” or upgrade your Linux installation.
  • EasyMercurial can be downloaded as a .deb package (for Debian or Ubuntu installations) from the EasyMercurial Download page. Your package manager should automatically install any dependencies, including Mercurial itself. On Red Hat or other Linux distributions you will probably need to install Mercurial first using your package manager, then download the EasyMercurial source code package and compile and install it using the instructions in the included file README.txt: just run qmake and then make. The qmake tool is part of the qt-devel package, which you may need to install first.
  • If you use Linux, you probably already have a favourite text editor. Emacs and Nano are popular choices, but there are many others.

Installation on Windows

  • You should install MinGW and MSYS. Check that you can run (from the Windows Start menu) MinGW -> MinGW Shell in order to open a Bash prompt.
  • Python + SciPy + Numpy + Matplotlib:
    • Install Python 2.7 using the MSI installer from python.org
    • Install NumPy and SciPy packages from scipy.org
    • Alternatively, you can either use one of these pre-packaged Python distributions, such as EPD or Anaconda
  • Install the scikits.audiolab package from this site, and matplotlib from SourceForge.
  • EasyMercurial can be downloaded from the EasyMercurial Download page (the Windows installer will also install Mercurial itself).
  • You will need to edit the PATH environment variable to add Python and Mercurial. To do this, go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Advanced and click the Environment Variables button; then edit the PATH user variable and copy and paste
    C:\Python27;C:\Program Files\EasyMercurial;C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyMercurial

    onto the end of it.
  • You can use Wordpad or Notepad as text editors, or install another editor such as Sublime Text 2 or TextWrangler.

Installation on Mac OSX

  • OSX comes with Bash and Python;
  • You can download Mercurial from the Mercurial web site and EasyMercurial from the EasyMercurial Download page
  • There are many text editors available for OSX, but TextEdit will suffice (make sure you are saving the New Documents in Plain Text - see TextEdit's preferences);

Python under OSX

The following instructions have been tested under OSX Lion (10.7).

  • Install XCode: Please follow the instructions on this page to install XCode using the AppStore;
  • Install Homebrew: please follow these instructions installed:
  • SciPy+Numpy +Matplotlib
    • use the following script: ScipySuperpack
    • alternatively, you can also use one of these pre-packaged Python distributions:
  • Audiolab depends on libsndfile, so you need to install it first. To install it run the following command on the Terminal:
brew install libsndfile

After this, you need to install Audiolab. To install Audiolab, you need to run the following commands on the Terminal (you might need to be sudo):

easy_install pip
pip install scikits.audiolab

Testing the installed software

We recommend that you try the following simple tests to ensure that everything is installed and working correctly before the course starts.

Bash

At the prompt, type “whoami”. You should be told what your user name is on the computer you are using.

Python

At the prompt, type “print 2+2″ and check that you agree with the result.

Then type “import sqlite3″ and verify that you don’t see an error message.

Mercurial

At the Bash prompt, type “hg”. You should see a list of basic Mercurial commands.

EasyMercurial

Create a directory (folder) somewhere on your computer.

Start EasyMercurial and create a repository in your new directory: Open -> File folder -> navigate to your directory and click “OK”.

Text editor

Create and save a file with some plain text in it.