Prerequisites¶
What you need to know¶
The tutorial assumes some basic familiarity with the commandline prompt in a terminal.
You’ll need to know how to install software. Some of the examples given refer
to Debian/Ubuntu’s apt-get; you ought to know what the equivalent is on
whatever operating system you’re using.
You’ll also need to know how to edit plain text or source files of various kinds.
It will be very useful to have some understanding of Python, but it’s not strictly necessary. However, if you’ve never done any programming, that will probably be an obstacle.
Software¶
The tutorial assumes that you’re using a Unix-like system, but there should be no reason why (for example) it would not work for Windows users.
You’ll need a suitable text editor, that you’re comfortable using.
Other software will be used, but the tutorial will discuss its installation.
However, your environment does need to be set up appropriately, and you will need to know how to use it effectively.
If your system already has Django and/or Python packages running that you’ve installed, you probably already have what you need and know what you need to know. All the same:
Platform-specific notes¶
GNU/Linux¶
Please make sure that you know how to use your system’s package manager, whether
it’s aptitude or YUM or something else.
Mac OS X¶
There are two very useful items that you should install.
- Command Line Tools for Xcode, various useful components (requires registration)
- Homebrew, a command line package manager
Python¶
You’ll need a reasonably up-to-date version of Python installed on your machine. 2.6 or newer should be fine.
Git¶
Please do check you can install Git:
sudo apt-get install git # for Debian/Ubuntu users
or:
brew install git # for Mac OS X users with Homebrew installed
There are other ways of installing Git; you can even get a graphical Git application, that will include the commandline tools. These are described at: