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Workshop 3: Ahead-of-Workshop Installation Instructions

In this set of instructions, we’ll be going over the basics of how to install the essential software we’ll need for Workshop 3:

  • conda (using miniconda)
  • Visual Studio Code
  • (Windows Only) WSL and Windows Terminal

Note that this will not cover installing Python packages in an environment or VS Code extensions (except for the special one needed on Windows), which will instead be covered in the workshop itself.

Each of these steps should be completed in order.

For Windows users, while there are multiple options for how to set things up, these instructions will be based around using WSL (so that macOS/Linux-style terminal commands work just the same), as described in this tutorial: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/developing-in-wsl/. If you don’t want to use this approach, please reach out the either of the programming TAs and we’ll help you out with that.

Installing WSL and Windows Terminal

To use these instructions, you must make sure that you’re running Windows 11 or Windows 10 version 2004+ (Build 19041 and higher). If you are not, please contact either of the programming TAs for an alternate set of instructions.

Install Windows Terminal

Go to the Microsoft Store and search for “Windows Terminal” (or use this link: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n0dx20hk701). Install this app, and you should be good to go!

Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux:

  • Open PowerShell as Administrator (either via start menu or in Windows Terminal) and run: wsl --install in the terminal.
    • This command enables the necessary Windows features and installs the Ubuntu distribution by default. You can later choose to install a different Linux Distribution. Given its popularity, we are using Ubuntu.
  • Restart Your Computer: A restart is required to complete the installation and apply changes.

Set up your Linux distribution:

  • Upon restart, open the newly installed Linux distro (Ubuntu) from the Windows Start menu or Windows Terminal app.
  • Follow the prompts to create a user account and password for your Linux distro.

After these steps, you should be ready to go!

Installing miniconda

Be sure to select the proper tab for your operating system (macOS, Linux (any distribution), or Windows). These instructions assume you are on a:

  • M-series (Apple Silicon) processor if on macOS
  • Intel/AMD (x64, not Arm) processor if on Windows or Linux

For more detailed versions of all of these (or if you have an Intel Mac or Arm Linux or Windows system), see the miniconda installation instructions from the conda documentation and/or reach out to one of the programming TAs for more detailed instructions.

macOS (M-series)
Linux (x64)
Windows

These four commands download the latest M-series version of the MacOS installer, rename it to a shorter file name, silently install, and then delete the installer:

mkdir -p ~/miniconda3
curl https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-MacOSX-arm64.sh -o ~/miniconda3/miniconda.sh
bash ~/miniconda3/miniconda.sh -b -u -p ~/miniconda3
rm ~/miniconda3/miniconda.sh

After installing, initialize your newly-installed Miniconda. The following commands initialize for bash and zsh shells (only use one if you only have one of the shells):

~/miniconda3/bin/conda init bash
~/miniconda3/bin/conda init zsh

Finally, close and re-open your terminal, and it should now indicate that you have conda installed by seeing the (base) environment tag in your terminal prompt.

Installing VS Code

macOS
Linux (x64)
Windows

After this, you should be good to go!

CSU ATS Programming TA Resources
Workshop 2 Optional Exercises
CSU ATS Programming TA Resources
Workshop 3: Command Line, Python Environments, and Development Environments