Software Installation Activity

Introduction

Using, working with or contributing to an H/FOSS project will invariably require you to install some additional software on your computer. There are three primary ways of accomplishing this on Linux. There are graphical software managers, like the Ubuntu Software app (often referred to as Ubuntu Software Center), that allow you to browse and install available software in a GUI. There are also tools, like apt, dkpg and yum, that install software from the command line. Finally, it is also possible to download, build and install software from its source code. The exercises below will guide you through the process of installing some software onto Ubuntu using the graphical Ubuntu Software app and also the apt command line tool. We’ll build and install a program from source in another exercise later in the semester.

Prerequisites

It is assumed you have already watched the videos assigned as required preparation for today’s class.

Exercises

Complete each of the following exercises:

1. Snapshotting: Any time you are doing system configuration or installs, it is a good idea to take a snapshot. Sometimes an install will not work or you’ll try several things before getting it to work. This can leave unnecessary changes or files on the machine. If you have a snapshot, you can roll back to the state before you started and do a clean install once you have it all figured out. Also, if something were to go horribly wrong, you can roll back to a known stable state. Make a snapshot of your current VM state in Virtual Box and give it a descriptive name.

2. Software Manager: apt, and similar tools (e.g. snap, yum, dnf, pkg) used by different Linux flavors, provide powerful ways to install software from the command line. However, if you do not know exactly what you want to install, a graphical tool that allows you to browse the available software may be preferable. In Ubuntu, the Ubuntu Software application (usually visible as a the suitcase icon) is such a tool. Use the Ubuntu Software app to find and install GIMP (Graphics Image Manipulation Program), a FOSS package for editing images. Run the GIMP application to verify that it works.

3. Snapshot: Make another snapshot of the system with GIMP installed.

4. Eclipse install, first attempt:

   • Confirm No Java: By default, Ubuntu does not come with Java installed. You can confirm this by typing java on the command line. Note that when you do, Ubuntu will tell you that java is not installed and make some suggestions as to which packages you might install (using apt) to get it. Don’t install Java yet, just make a note of the suggestions.

   • Confirm No Eclipse: Similarly, Ubuntu does not come with Eclipse installed. Confirm this by running eclipse from the command line. Make a note of any suggestions but do not install anything yet. The system probably recommended using yet another installation program called snap. We won’t study any details of snap here, but you can feel free to use snap as one of your install methods in the next part of this activity.

   • Research Eclipse and Java install: Use a search engine to find some advice on how to install Eclipse and/or Java on Ubuntu or more generally on Linux. Make a note of at least two approaches that seem promising. Use your best judgment in deciding how much time to spend on research; between five minutes and 15 minutes is probably suitable.

   • Install Eclipse: Your objective here is to get Eclipse installed and then compile and run a ‘hello world’ Java program in Eclipse. Choose one of the approaches that you researched in the previous part of this activity. Complete the installation. Test it by attempting to create and run a ‘hello world’ project in Eclipse. Make a note of any problems you encountered or anything that is not working as expected.

   • Snapshot: Make a snapshot of the system now that you have completed your first Eclipse installation.

5. Eclipse install, second attempt: Even if your installation of Eclipse worked perfectly, let’s assume that something went wrong so that you can practice snapshotting. Recall that in an earlier part of this activity, you made a note of at least two approaches to installing Eclipse. So far you have implemented only one of those approaches.

   • Roll back to an earlier snapshot, then try a second, different approach to installing Eclipse. Again attempt to create a ‘hello world’ project and run it.

   • Create another snapshot after this installation.

   • Decide which of your two installations was more successful. If your first installation was more successful, switch back to that snapshot.

6. *Git**: In order to interact with GitHub for things like retrieving code from, or contributing changes to an source project you will need to use the git command line tool. We won’t be using this today, but we’ll need it for our class on version control. So we’ll go ahead install it now. Figure out how to use apt from the command line to install git. Run git from the command line to ensure that it has been installed. If it has been successfully installed you should see a help screen showing the “usage: “ of Git and a long list of the “common Git commands.”

7. Snapshot: Make another snapshot of the system now that you have Git installed.

8. Meld: When using Git and GitHub for team development, situations will arise when two people have changed the same file in incompatible ways. When this happens it will be necessary to merge the changes manually. A graphical tool for displaying the changes and allowing you to choose which change to accept makes this job a lot easer. Meld is just such a tool. Like Git, we won’t be using Meld today, but let’s go ahead and install it so its ready when we need it. Figure out how to install Meld. Once you have it installed you can verify that it works by typing meld on the command line. If everything is good then the GUI tool should appear.

9. Snapshot: Make another snapshot of the system now that you have Meld installed.