When taking CSE 101, CSE 107, or CSE 113, we recommend that students new to using Linux use a virtual machine. A virtual machine is an emulated computer, which we'll use to run the GNU/Linux operating system from a Windows or Mac OS machine.
For introductory classes, it is especially helpful to use a virtual machine, since you can be sure you have all of the software required with minimal setup. In this guide, we'll walk you through setting up our standard VM image, which comes with everything you'll need for your classes pre-installed.
Reinitialize the MAC address of all network cards
or your machine may not work. Then, click the Import button.This machine is yours to break, fool around with, or work on! It's capable of everything you need for our introductory classes.
We recommend checking out The Linux Command Line if you haven't ever used a shell before. Since you'll be spending a lot of your time in a shell from here on, it's good to get familiar with it early.
You should use Dropbox to make sure your files aren't lost, since it can be pretty easy to overwrite something accidentally. We've already installed it for you, so sign up! You should really learn to use our Gitlab, but Dropbox will do the job for now.
Your default text editor is Atom, which is made by Github. Atom supports many plugins and themes that make it able to be highly personalized. The iPython shell is also installed, and is useful for writing Python code. Both are great for people learning to code for the first time.
At some point, nearly every person in this department begins to use Vim and/or Emacs. They are extremely powerful, highly customizable tools, and can make writing code faster, easier, and prettier than in other text editors.
$ vimtutor
.$ emacs
, then press ctrl+h
, then press t
.
1. Download/upload an image of your choice. This assumes you have downloaded a file ~/Downloads/bg.jpg
.
$ cd ~/.dotfiles/openbox
2. rename the current background file.
$ cp .bg.jpg old.bg.jpg
3. Copy the new background, notice the dot and this assumes you are in the ~/.dotfiles/openbox
directory.
$ cp ~/Downloads/bg.jpg .bg.jpg
4. You have to exit openbox and run startx
again, Middle Mouse Click and Exit.
6) run startx
$ startx
sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-guest-dkms
in your terminal, and try again.Open Empty Editor On Start
Restore Previous Windows On Start
to no
If you want to build your own Linux machine, virtual or otherwise, a basic summary of our setup follows. For a full $ dpkg -l
output, please see this page