Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below) and an up to date browser. They are also required to abide by The Carpentry's Code of Conduct.
Workshops may be held in the Library's computer instruction lab or online via Zoom, but it is advisable to use a personal device so that the tools are available to use following the workshop. Instructors are available 30 minutes before the start of each workshop to assist if you have problems.
Software Carpentry participants should install the following OR additional software as detailed in the pre-workshop email:
Data Carpentry participants should install each of the following OR as detailed in the pre-workshop email:
Find more specific information below on how to download and install required software for the workshop you are attending.
Access reference guides for various software tools here.
Updated 1/11/19
Jump to the installation instructions depending on your software needs:
Bash is a commonly-used shell that gives you the power to do simple tasks more quickly.
cmd
and press [Enter])setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"
SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.
exit
then pressing [Enter]This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.
The default shell in all versions of macOS is Bash, so no need to install anything. You access Bash from the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities
). See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open the Terminal. You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.
The default shell is usually Bash, but if your machine is set up differently you can run it by opening a terminal and typing bash
. There is no need to install anything.
Git is a version control system that lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com. You will need a supported web browser.
You will need an account at github.com for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already. Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For example, you may want to review these instructions for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.
Git should be installed on your computer as part of your Bash install (described above).
For OS X 10.9 and higher, install Git for Mac by downloading and running the most recent "mavericks" installer from this list. Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click Open on the pop up window. After installing Git, there will not be anything in your /Applications
folder, as Git is a command line program. For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard" available here.
If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install git
and for Fedora run sudo dnf install git
.
When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is optimized for writing code, with features like automatic color-coding of key words. The default text editor on macOS and Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being intuitive. If you accidentally find yourself stuck in it, hit the Esc key, followed by :+Q+! (colon, lower-case 'q', exclamation mark), then hitting Return to return to the shell.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It is installed along with Git.
Others editors that you can use are Notepad++ or Sublime Text. Be aware that you must add its installation directory to your system path. Please ask your instructor to help you do this.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open nano. It should be pre-installed.
Others editors that you can use are BBEdit or Sublime Text.
nano is a basic editor and the default that instructors use in the workshop. It should be pre-installed.
Others editors that you can use are Gedit, Kate or Sublime Text.
Python is a popular language for research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as well. Installing all of its research packages individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend Anaconda, an all-in-one installer.
Regardless of how you choose to install it, please make sure you install Python version 3.x (e.g., 3.6 is fine).
We will teach Python using the Jupyter notebook, a programming environment that runs in a web browser. For this to work you will need a reasonably up-to-date browser. The current versions of the Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers are all supported (some older browsers, including Internet Explorer version 9 and below, are not).
Open this link with your web browser.
Download the Python 3 installer for Windows.
Install Python 3 using all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Add Anaconda to my PATH environment variable.
Open this link with your web browser.
Download the Python 3 installer for OS X.
Install Python 3 using all of the defaults for installation.
Open this link with your web browser.
Download the Python 3 installer for Linux.
(The installation requires using the shell. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.)
Open a terminal window.
Type
bash Anaconda3-
and then press Tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear. If it does not, navigate to the folder where you downloaded the file, for example with:
cd Downloads
Then, try again.
Press Return. You will follow the text-only prompts. To move through the text, press Spacebar. Type yes
and press enter to approve the license. Press enter to approve the default location for the files. Type yes
and press enter to prepend Anaconda to your PATH
(this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).
Close the terminal window.
R is a programming language that is especially powerful for data exploration, visualization, and statistical analysis. To interact with R, we use RStudio.
Install R by downloading and running this .exe file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE. Note that if you have separate user and admin accounts, you should run the installers as administrator (right-click on .exe file and select "Run as administrator" instead of double-clicking). Otherwise problems may occur later, for example when installing R packages.
Install R by downloading and running this .pkg file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE.
You can download the binary files for your distribution from CRAN. Or you can use your package manager (e.g. for Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install r-base
and for Fedora run sudo dnf install R
). Also, please install the RStudio IDE.
SQL is a specialized programming language used with databases. We use a simple database manager called SQLite in our lessons.
The Data Carpentry Windows Installer installs SQLite for Windows. If you used the installer to configure nano, you don't need to run it again.
SQLite comes pre-installed on macOS.
SQLite comes pre-installed on Linux.
If you installed Anaconda, it also has a copy of SQLite without support to readline
. Instructors will provide a workaround for it if needed.
For this lesson you will need OpenRefine and a web browser. Note: this is a Java program that runs on your machine (not in the cloud). It runs inside a web browser, but no web connection is needed.
Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It will not run correctly in Internet Explorer.
Download software from http://openrefine.org/
Create a new directory called OpenRefine.
Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by right-clicking and selecting "Extract ...".
Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
Launch OpenRefine by clicking openrefine.exe
(this will launch a command prompt window, but you can ignore that - just wait for OpenRefine to open in the browser).
If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.
Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It may not run correctly in Safari.
Download software from http://openrefine.org/.
Create a new directory called OpenRefine.
Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by double-clicking it.
Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
Launch OpenRefine by dragging the icon into the Applications folder.
Use Ctrl-click/Open ...
to launch it.
If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.
Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser.
Download software from http://openrefine.org/.
Make a directory called OpenRefine.
Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory.
Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
Launch OpenRefine by entering ./refine
into the terminal within the OpenRefine directory.
If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.