Notion is an all-in-one workspace which all the course content will be hosted on. The Notion application is not available on Linux, but you will still have access to the course content through the Notion web app. Sign up for an account at https://notion.so/signup.
DO NOT select Continue with Apple or Continue with Google. Instead, enter the email you used to apply to General Assembly in the provided area and select Continue with email.
After doing so, you will be prompted to check your email for a login code. Do so and enter the code to create a new account.
Upon signing up, you should have access to the course content, including this installfest! Continue on from here in the app.
🚨 Don't have access to the course content? Let your instructor know immediately so that you can complete the installfest and have access to the course content!
We will be using slack to communicate throughout the course. You will receive an invite to the relevant channels via email. You can log in via the web browser, but using the app instead is highly recommended. Download Slack here and install it.
If you haven't already, download the Zoom client and install it.
When possible, please copy the commands from this page. You will use most of the commands here once and never again. Typing them out will only introduce the possibility for you to make errors. Certain commands will require you to alter portions of them - this is specifically called out when they appear. There are no bonus points for doing work that has already been done for you.
Windows does not manage your Linux installation and will not automatically perform updates. To manually do this use this command:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Do this now. Enter your password when prompted, and accept changes to be made.
Also run this command to ensure you have wget (to retrieve content from web servers) and ca-certificates (to ensure SSL-based apps can check the authenticity of the connections they make):
sudo apt-get install wget ca-certificatesYou may get notifications that these are already installed. If so, great.
zsh is the shell of taste and class. Install it with this command:
apt install zshVerify the installation with this command:
zsh --versionThe version number should be 5.4.2 or greater
Make zsh the default shell with this command
chsh -s $(which zsh)End your terminal session by closing the terminal window.
Open a new terminal window. You may be prompted to run a configuration setup for new users. If you are, populate the ~/.zshrc with the configuration recommended by the system administrator.
Confirm the new shell is installed with this command:
echo $SHELLThis should return /usr/bin/zsh.
Finally, just to be extra sure use this command:
$SHELL --versionThis should return the same version number as the zsh --version command you ran earlier.
We're also going to install Oh My Zsh - an "open source, community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration." Use this command:
sh -c "$(wget https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh -O -)"The vanilla configuration of Oh My Zsh is great for our needs, but you can further customize it if you want to - check out their website and their documentation to see how.
We will use VS Code as our editor in class. Download and install VS Code here.
Git comes pre-installed with Ubuntu, but ensure you have the most recent stable version with:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa
When prompted, press Enter
Then enter:
sudo apt-get update
and
sudo apt-get install git
Add your GitHub username, email, and password to your git configuration:
git config --global user.name "Username"
Replace Username with your name. Ensure you leave the quotes surrounding your username.
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
Replace [email protected] with the email address associated with your GitHub. Ensure you leave the quotes surrounding your email.
Set the default branch name to main with this command:
git config --global init.defaultBranch main
Set the default git editor to VS Code with this command:
git config --global core.editor "code --wait"and finally turn off rebasing as the default behavior when making a pull:
git config --global pull.rebase false
Proper code, utilities, and the use of Git ignore files prevent us from uploading private secrets to the public internet.
A global Git ignore file will prevent us from uploading private secrets to the public internet across all of your projects so that you don't have to worry about making the appropriate entries in every project's Git ignore.
First, create the file:
touch ~/.gitignore_global
Next, configure Git to use this file:
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global
Open the new .gitignore_global file in VS Code:
code ~/.gitignore_global
Here is a .gitignore_global file for you to use.
Open the above page and copy all of its contents.
Paste the contents of the file you copied into VS Code, then save the file.
💡 This is a great time to turn on **Auto Save** as well! This setting is in the **File** menu - select it, then re-open the **File** menu to ensure a checkmark is next to the **Auto Save** option.
Auto Save with a check next to the option, indicating that it is turned on.
Github provides a way to host Git repos in the cloud. It enables collaboration and is wildly popular. If you have not already created an account there, do so now.
You will need to have a General Assembly Github Enterprise account as well. You can get one by signing up here.
We'll be using the GitHub command line utility to perform some actions on GitHub as well. Install it with this command:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-key C99B11DEB97541F0
sudo apt-add-repository https://cli.github.com/packages
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ghThen login with this command:
gh auth loginYou will be prompted to login to a github.com account or a GitHub Enterprise account. Select the github.com option. A second prompt will appear asking how you would like to authenticate. Select the Login with a web browser option.
You will then be prompted to copy the one time code from the terminal. Do this now. Then press the Enter key to open the github.com login page in your browser.
Complete the login process, authorize the GitHub CLI, and return to your terminal. If you were successful, you will receive a message that says authentication is complete. Press Enter.
The final prompt will ask you to choose whether you want to use HTTPS or SSH. Select the HTTPS option.
The gh auth login process.
GitHub is deprecating the use of password authentication via the command line starting on August 13, 2021, as detailed in this GitHub blog post. To prepare for this change, we will be authenticating using GitHub's preferred authentication method: Personal Access Tokens (PATs).
First, visit https://github.com and ensure that you are signed in. Also, ensure that you have verified your email address with GitHub. After doing so, navigate to https://github.com/settings/tokens.
On the Personal access tokens page, click Generate new token.
The Personal access tokens page in Developer Settings. The Generate new token button is highlighted.
You will be taken to a page prompting you to create a new personal access token. Fill the Note field with the name of the device you are using the token with. Select all the repo scopes - ensure your selections match what is in the screenshot below. When you have done so, click the Generate token button.
You will be taken back to the Personal access tokens page, and the token you just created will be visible:
Click the clipboard button to copy the newly created token.
🚨 You will only see the token on this page ***ONCE***. You ***MUST*** copy it now and paste it in a secure and private place (preferably in a password manager). Treat this PAT as you would a password! The PAT will be used in place of a password to interact will GitHub on the command line! 🧠 Using multiple machines? It is best practice to create a new PAT for each device requiring command-line access to GitHub - this way, if you need to revoke access to any single device, none of your other devices are impacted.Place the token in a secure place!
Use this command to install nvm which we will use to install node:
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh | bashThe enter this command block, which will append the nvm directory to your ~/.zshrc file:
cat << EOF >> ~/.zshrc
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" # This loads nvm bash_completion
EOFAfter doing so, restart the terminal session, and run the nvm --version command once more. If you still do not get a version number, alert your instructor.
Restart the terminal session.
Use nvm to install node with this command:
nvm install nodeWith node installed install nodemon globally with this command:
npm i -g nodemonDevelopers avoid using the mouse whenever possible because they are more productive when their hands are on the keyboard. Ubuntu lets us do this by opening applications using System Search instead of the mouse by:
- Pressing
Windows Key(referred to as theSuperkey in Ubuntu) to open System Search - Start typing the name of the app until the app is highlighted
- Press
Enterto open the app!
Quickly switch between running applications by pressing Alt + Tab.
You can switch between multiple windows of the same application using cmd + ``` (that's a back-tick character, which is above the Tab key).
You'll periodically need to take screenshots. To do this you can use the Gnome Screenshot Utility, which should be installed by default.
Uploading Screenshots and Images to imgur
Often you will need to share images with others or use them in your applications, notes, readme files, etc. Unfortunately, if an image exists only on your computer, you lose the ability to use it anywhere but on your computer. To get around this, we can upload images to a cloud service like imgur, one of the most popular image hosting services on the internet.
Feel free to open an account there, so you can keep track of what you upload, but you can also use their service without an account.
While this is optional, we recommend using a password manager to help keep track of the various accounts and logins you will be creating throughout the course and in the rest of your digital life. Bitwarden is free, open-source, and provides a great user experience, but if you're using a different one, that is no problem.