By taking this class, you have some interest in working with computers in a powerful way. The terminal is the most powerful way to use a linux computer, so let's jump in and use it whenever possible.
Open a terminal using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Alt-T.
Type the following command, and press enter:
sudo apt-get update
You will have to enter your password. Do this, and watch the information scroll by. Your computer is looking to find out which packages can be updated.
Type the following command, and press enter:
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
When you run this command, your computer downloads and installs all of the updates that were identified by the previous command.
Install a package:
sudo apt-get install package_name
Uninstall a package, but keep its configuration files (dependencies?):
sudo apt-get remove package_name
Remove a package, and its configuration files (dependencies?):
sudo apt-get remove --purge package_name
Start a Python interpreter, using the default version of Python on your system:
python
Start a Python interpreter, using a specific version of Python:
python3.3
Exit out of the Python interpreter:
Ctrl-DThere are a few things that will help you become comfortable using the terminal.
Open a terminal:
Ctrl-Alt-T
Scroll through your previous terminal commands:
up arrow, down arrow
Clear output from your terminal screen. You will still be able to scroll up and see previous output.
Ctrl-LUbuntu is still using Python 2.7 by default. It is fairly easy to install Python 3.3, however, and then be able to choose the version of Python you want to use.
Add the "deadsnakes" package archive (ppa) to your system. This archive has a number of older and newer versions of Python. Then install python3.3.
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fkrull/deadsnakes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.3
Now that Python 3.3 is installed on your system, you have two options. You can start a default Python 2.7 session by running the command 'python' in a terminal. You can start a Python 3.3 session by running the command 'python3.3' in a terminal.
Open a terminal.
sudo apt-get install geany
Press the windows button, and type 'geany'.
Drag the geany icon to the task bar on the left side of the screen. This creates a shortcut you can use to start geany.
Write a Hello World program, and save it as 'hello.py'.
There are three ways you can run a program in Geany:
You should see a terminal window pop up, with your output in it.
Open Geany, and open a Python Hello World program. If you don't have one on your system, write one and save it as hello.py, and run the program. This makes sure that Geany is trying to run Python programs. When you have a running hello.py program, go to Build >> Set Build Commands.
Under 'Python commands', look for the 'Compile' line. Enter the following in the 'Command' box. Make sure you get the spaces right. You should have 'python3.3' followed by a space, and the rest of the command. If you have 'python 3.3', with a space between python and 3.3, Geany will not be able to run your code.
python3.3 -m py_compile "%f"
Under 'Execute commands', look for the 'Execute' line. Enter the following in the 'Command' box, paying attention once again to the spaces.
python3.3 "%f"
Test your setup with a hello.py file, using Python 3.3 syntax.