Your Machine

You should have your own laptop. If you don’t, let us know ASAP and we’ll see if we can sort something out.

We’re all about Unix-based machines, so if you have Linux or a MacBook already, that’s great. If you have a Windows machine and its your preferred OS then I’m afraid you’re going to have to do a bit of adjusting. There are three options in getting a Unix-based OS onto your machine.

For all of these options, you’re going to have to get an OS image. Since you’re reading this, I would recommend Ubuntu Desktop, specifically latest LTS release. As of the time of this article, that release is 14.04.2 LTS. You can get the image from someone at Praekelt, just ask around, or download it.

  1. Fresh install of Ubuntu. This will wipe everything on your machine, but leave you with a nice clean install of Ubuntu. This is useful if you never want to see Windows again, or if you have a small drive. You can either burn the image to a DVD, or to a flash drive, or install from floppies. Click here for installation instructions. Select the “Replace Windows with Ubuntu” option when installing.

  2. Dual boot with Windows. This will allow you to choose between Windows and Ubuntu when you start your laptop up. You do need enough free drive space for Ubuntu (at least 40GB free). Follow the same instructions as for (1), but select the “Install Ubuntu alongside Windows” option.

  3. Run Ubuntu inside Windows in a VirtualMachine. For this we will use VirtualBox. Click here for instructions. You can also set up a headless version of Ubuntu, where you do all your coding in Windows, but execute the code in a headless (terminal only) VirtualMachine. This can be useful if you want to run a VirtualMachine, but your machine is low on resources. Instructions for how to do this can be found here.

The rest of these articles will expect that you are using Linux or OSX.

In summary:

Make sure

  • you have a laptop you can bring to work

  • that laptop is running Ubuntu or OSX