Bash

Bash is a commonly-used shell. Using a shell gives you more power to do more tasks more quickly with your computer.

Mac

The default shell in all versions of Mac OS X is bash, so no need to install anything. You access bash from the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities). You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.

Windows

Install Git Bash following these instructions. This gives you the Bash shell plus Git.

Linux

The default shell is usually bash but if not you can get to bash by opening a terminal and typing bash. No need to install anything.

Code Editor

When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is optimized for writing code, with features like automatic color-coding of key words.

Mac

We recommend Text Wrangler or Sublime Text.

Windows

Notepad++ is a popular free code editor for Windows.

Linux

Kate is one option for Linux users.

Python

Python is becoming more and more popular in scientific computing, and it's a great language for teaching general programming concepts due to its easy-to-read syntax. We will be using Python version 2.7. Installing all the scientific packages for Python individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend using an all-in-one installer.

Mac & Linux

We recommend the all-in-one scientific Python installer Anaconda. Installation requires using the shell and if you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself just download the installer and we'll help you at the boot camp. If you want to give it a try, do the following:

1. Download the installer that matches your operating system and save it in your home folder.
2. Open a terminal window. On the Mac, the Terminal is in /Applications/Utilities.
3. Type

   bash Anaconda-

   and then press tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear.
4. Press enter. You will follow the text-only prompts. When there is a colon at the bottom of the screen press the down arrow to move down through the text. Type yes and press enter to approve the license. Press enter to approve the default location for the files. Type yes and press enter to prepend Anaconda to your PATH (this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).
5. Done!

Windows

For Windows we recommend the Enthought Canopy distribution since it seems to work well with Git Bash.

For other options check the Python4Astronomers page on installing scientific Python.

Git

Git is a state-of-the-art version control system. It lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com.

Mac

For git, for the Anacoda version of Python (see below), and for a lot of other scientific computing software, Mac users need a C compiler on their computer. The way to get that is to install Xcode.

For Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8:

Go to the Xcode website. Get XCode from the App Store making certain to install the command line tools (from the Download preferences pane). Git is included in the command line tools.

For Mac OS X 10.6

If you have Mac OS X 10.6, first get XCode by going to the Apple developer site. You have to sign in with an Apple ID linked to a Developer account. If you don't have one, you can register and create one. Then, once you log in, go to page 8 and find "XCode 3.2.6 and iOS SDK 4.3 for Snow Leopard" near the top. Click to open that section, and then download the .dmg file. It's 4.14 Gb, so leave some time to download this one. Then, install just git.

Windows

Install Git Bash following the instructions here if you haven't already.

Linux

If git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager (e.g. apt-get).

SQL

SQL (pronounced Es-Cue-El) is a language for accessing data that meets certain characterists from databases.

The easiest way to use SQL is to install the SQLite Manager plugin for Firefox (which naturally requires you to have Firefox).

Virtual Machine

Installation issues can and do happen. To ensure that you can continue to participate in a lesson even if one of your software programs fails, we provide a Linux virtual machine that contains all the necessary software pre-installed. Please install VirtualBox and download this virtual machine image. Load the VM into VirtualBox by doing Import Appliance and loading the .ova file.

Testing your Installation

Once you've gone through the installation above, you can test your installation using these instructions.