Computer Setup

Instructions to set up your data science environment.

Contents

• Installation
  • OSX
  • Windows
  • Linux
• Working on assignments
• Opening notebooks

OSX

1. First things first. Your terminal program allows you to type commands to control your computer. On a Mac, you can open the Terminal by going to your Applications screen and selecting Terminal (it might be in the folder named “Other”). Or, you can open Spotlight (Cmd + Space) and type “Terminal”.

2. First, let’s install brew if you haven’t done that yet. Homebrew is a program that allows you to easily install other software on OSX. In your terminal, run:

    # This downloads the Ruby code of the installation script and runs it
    /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
   

   Verify your installation by making sure brew --version doesn’t error at your terminal.

3. Download and install Anaconda:

    # Uses curl to download the installation script
    curl https://repo.continuum.io/archive/Anaconda3-4.4.0-MacOSX-x86_64.sh > miniconda.sh
   
    # Run the miniconda installer (you will need to enter your password)
    bash miniconda.sh
   

   Ensure the installation worked by running conda --version.

4. Run these commands to create a new conda environment. Each conda environment has its own package versions. This allows us to switch between package versions easily. For example, this class uses Python 3, but you might have another that uses Python 2. With a conda environment, you can switch between those at will.

    # Create a python 3 conda environment with the full set
    # of anaconda packages (jupyter, numpy, pandas, ...)
    conda create --name ds100 python=3 anaconda
   
    # Switch to the ds100 environment
    source activate ds100
   

   From now on, you can switch to the ds100 env with source activate ds100, and switch back to the default env with source deactivate.

You may remove the install_anaconda.sh script now if you’d like since it’s quite large.

Click here to continue to the next part of the setup.

Windows

Getting set up on Windows is especially prone to error if you aren’t careful about your configuration. If you’ve already had Anaconda or git installed and can’t get the other to work, try uninstalling everything and starting from scratch.

Installing Anaconda:

1. Visit the Anaconda website and download the installer for Python 3.5. Download the 64-bit installer if your computer is 64-bit (more likely), the 32-bit installer if not. You can Google how to check whether your computer is 64 or 32 bit.

2. Leave all the options as default (install for all users, in the default location). Make sure both of these checkboxes are checked:

   

3. Install.

4. Verify that the installation is working by starting the Anaconda Prompt (you should be able to start it from the Start Menu) and typing python:

   

   Notice how the python prompt shows that it is running from Anaconda. Now you have conda installed!

   From now on, when we talk about the “Terminal” or “Command Prompt”, we are referring to the Anaconda Prompt that you just installed.

5. Run these commands to create a new conda environment. Each conda environment has its own package versions. This allows us to switch between package versions easily. For example, this class uses Python 3, but you might have another that uses Python 2. With a conda environment, you can switch between those at will.

    # Create a conda env called ds100 that uses python 3
    conda create --name ds100 python=3 anaconda
   
    # Switch to the ds100 environment
    activate ds100
   

   From now on, you can switch to the ds100 env with activate ds100, and switch back to the default env with deactivate.

Linux

These instructions assume you have apt-get (Ubuntu and Debian). For other distributions of Linux, substitute the available package manager.

1. You likely already know this if you’re running Linux, but just in case: your terminal program allows you to type commands to control your computer. On Linux, you can open the Terminal by going to the Applications menu and clicking “Terminal”.

2. Install wget. This is a command-line tool that lets you download files / webpages at the command line.

    sudo apt-get install wget
   

3. Download the Anaconda installation script:

    wget -O install_anaconda.sh https://repo.continuum.io/archive/Anaconda3-4.2.0-Linux-x86_64.sh
   

   If you have a 32-bit operating system, use this command instead.

    wget -O install_anaconda.sh https://repo.continuum.io/archive/Anaconda3-4.2.0-Linux-x86.sh
   

4. Install Anaconda:

    bash install_anaconda.sh
   

   Ensure the installation worked by running conda --version.

5. Run these commands to create a new conda environment. Each conda environment has its own package versions. This allows us to switch between package versions easily. For example, this class uses Python 3, but you might have another that uses Python 2. With a conda environment, you can switch between those at will.

    # Create a conda env called ds100 that uses python 3
    conda create --name ds100 python=3 anaconda
   
    # Switch to the ds100 environment
    source activate ds100
   

   From now on, you can switch to the ds100 env with source activate ds100, and switch back to the default env with source deactivate.

Click here to continue to the next part of the setup.

Working on assignments

These instructions are the same for OSX, Windows, and Linux.

To work on assignments, you should download the assignment zipfile (looks like hw1.zip). Then you can unzip the files into a folder of your choosing. The staff recommend that you create a parent folder that holds all the assignments for this class for easier access.

Remember the location of your assignment files because you’ll need to navigate to the folder to open the notebook.

You’ll notice that all the assignments for this class have a folder structure that looks something like:

hw1/
  func.png
  ok_tests/
  images/
  hw1.ipynb
  hw1.ok
  something_cool.csv

The file containing the actual assignment ends in .ipynb (short for IPython notebook). The other files are used for the assignment but you don’t have to open them unless we ask you to.

Opening notebooks

To open Jupyter notebooks, you’ll navigate to parent directory of the assignment in your terminal and run:

source activate ds100 # omit the `source` part on Windows
jupyter notebook

This will automatically open the notebook interface in your browser. You can then browse to a notebook and open it.