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MAT2015 and 2016 Software

We will be running this session in the MAT G2 lab with the iMacs -- these should have the software we need already installed.

If you'd prefer to use your own laptop instead of the iMac, you can, but you'll need to make sure the following software is installed on it beforehand. We won't have time during the session to sort out installation problems I'm afraid.

Shortlist

Day 1

  • Bash (the particular Unix shell we’ll be using)
  • Python 2.6+ (the scripting language used in the course)
  • A text editor (for programming!)

Day 2

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.something, (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 also use one of these pre-packaged Python distributions:
  • 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);
  • SciPy+Numpy

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.

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.