Using your own computer

Using your own computer#

If you want to use your own laptop, then you have a few options:

  • Use your laptop as a terminal to connect to the remove machines setup for this class (portal and portal2).

  • Install the Bash shell and compilers on your laptop and develop on your machine directly.

  • Install a Linux virtual machine on your computer.

Tip

The Software Carpentry instructions for setting your Unix environment give an excellent description of how to prepare your personal Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.

Warning

Due to the large variations in personal machines, we cannot support software on your personal machine.

Using the remote servers#

To access portal or portal2, you need to install an SSH client (later in the semester, it will be helpful to have an X11 / X Window server)

Once it is installed, you can ssh into portal.mathlab.stonybrook.edu or portal2.mathlab.stonybrook.edu.

Windows#

The standard SSH client for Windows is putty. This is freely downloadable and can be installed following the instructions at that link.

An X11 server that has been recommended for use with putty is Xming.

MacOS#

You can open the Terminal app on your Mac to access the Unix shell. MacOS usually has an SSH client installed by default.

Later in the semester, if you want an X11 server, you can install XQuartz. Some people recommend doing this via Homebrew

Linux#

If you are running Linux on your personal machine, you should already have an SSH client installed.

Using your personal machine directly#

You need to install the Unix shell and compilers directly on your machine.

Windows#

Use the Windows Subsystem for Linux (version 2). This is a virtual machine that runs from within your Windows OS and gives you (essentially) an entire Linux environment. To install this, follow the instructions from Microsoft: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

MacOS#

You should have most of what you need, but other software can be installed via brew. See the homebrew instructions.

Note

The shell we will use in this class is Bash. Your Mac might use a different default shell, so some of the more advanced topics might differ slightly.

You can check your shell by doing:

echo $SHELL

If necessary, you can change your default shell.

Linux#

You likely have everything you need already for the class. You can access a terminal from your software launcher.

ChromeOS#

ChromeOS has the option of using a Linux virtual machine called crustini. To enable this, follow these instructions on setting up crustini.

Once setup, you can install the necessary compilers via the package manager:

apt install g++

Using a Linux Live Distribution#

A “live” distribution of Linux runs directly from a USB stick, without having to install anything locally. It can be a little slow, but should provide all the tools you need.

One recommendation is the Fedora Linux. You can find instructions on how to write the image to a USB stick and boot into a live Fedora session here: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/latest/preparing-boot-media/

For C++ programming, you will need to install the compiler each time you start the live session as:

dnf install gcc-c++
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