Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Fall Semester, 2007
6.01: Introduction to EECS I

Installing the software on GNU/Linux

The laptops in the lab use Ubuntu, so we know things work on that. We also expect the software to work on other distributions. Details of the installation depend on which GNU/Linux distribution you are running, so talk to the staff for help.

A. Get Python, tk, and numpy

We will be using Python 2.5 this semester on the class laptops, but, if your Linux distribution does not provide Python 2.5, using Python 2.4 should be fine. You can either use your distribution's package manager (apt, yum, etc.) to download and install Python, or you can compile from source.

You should also install tkinter, a Python package, so that you can run SoaR. Installation will be dependent on your distribution. For recent Debian-based distros, there is a package (python-tk) that you can install with apt. On other distributions, you should be able to find an appropriate package to install as well.

You will also need to install numpy, a Python package, for some of the assignments. Again, installation will be dependent on your distribution. For recent Debian-based distros, there is a package (python-numpy) that you can install with apt. For other distributions, you can either compile from source or find the appropriate package for your distribution.

B. Get SoaR

Download and extract the latest version of SoaR to a temporary folder (your desktop, home directory, /tmp, etc.). In a terminal window, navigate to the directory you extracted SoaR to, and at the prompt, do: 
cd SoaR
sudo python setup.py install
Note that since the installation script writes to protected system directories, if you do not have sudo set up, you will need to become root before running the script.

C. Run SoaR

To start SoaR, do: 

SoaR