Setting-up your environment

Please complete the following steps before the start of the course.

1. Installing Git on your computer

  • Linux: install Git using your distribution's official package manager. To test whether your installation was successful, try to run git help.

    • Ubuntu/Debian: apt-get install git
    • Fedora/CentOS: dnf install git

  • Windows: download Git from this link and follow the installation instructions.
    When the installation is complete, open the Git Bash application from the Windows start menu. This application acts as a small Linux shell, with Git and a few other basic GNU-Linux tools installed (e.g. the vim and nano editors).

  • MacOS: Download Git from this link and follow the installation instructions.
    After the installation completes, Git should be available in your shell command line. You can try to run git help to see if the install was successful.


2. Create a GitHub account

GitHub is a commercial online hosting platform for Git repositories, currently owned by Microsoft.

We will use GitHub for some of the course exercises, and you will therefor need to have a (free) account on GitHub to use during the course. If you do not already have a GitHub account, please go to www.github.com and sign-up for a free account.

IMPORTANT: once you have create your account, please add your name and GitHub user name to this google doc document. This is needed so that we can add you to projects we will use during the exercises.


3. Install Git-LFS on your computer

Git LFS (Large File Storage) is an extension for Git that will be covered during the optional part of the course (last half-day of the course).

If you intend to attend this part of the course, please install the Git-LFS extension on your machine.

  • Linux: install Git LFS using your distribution's official package manager:

    • Ubuntu/Debian: apt-get install git-lfs
    • Fedora/CentOS: dnf install git-lfs

  • Windows: Git LFS is packaged directly with Git for Windows, therefore no extra installation step is required.

  • MacOS: Git LFS can be installed by either:

Last modified: Tuesday, 28 September 2021, 5:14 PM