Setting up your computer {#move-to-your-own-machine}¶

Overview¶

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to install all of the software needed to do the data science covered in this book on your own computer.

Chapter learning objectives¶

By the end of the chapter, readers will be able to do the following:

Install the Git version control software.
Install and launch a local instance of JupyterLab with the R kernel.
Download the worksheets that accompany the chapters of this book from GitHub.

Installing software on your own computer¶

This section will provide instructions for installing the software required by this book on your own computer. Given that installation instructions can vary widely based on the computer setup, we have created instructions for multiple operating systems. In particular, the installation instructions below have been verified to work on a computer that:

runs one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, macOS Big Sur (version 11.4.x or 11.5.x), Windows 10 Professional, Enterprise or Education (version 2004, 20H2, or 21H1),
has a connection to the internet,
uses a 64-bit CPU,
uses English as the default language.

Git¶

As shown in Chapter @ref(Getting-started-with-version-control), Git \index{git!installation} is a very useful tool for version controlling your projects, as well as sharing your work with others. Here’s how to install Git on the following operating systems:

Windows: To install Git on Windows, go to https://git-scm.com/download/win and download the Windows version of Git. Once the download has finished, run the installer and accept the default configuration for all pages.

MacOS: To install Git on Mac OS, open the terminal (how-to video) and type the following command:

xcode-select --install

Ubuntu: To install Git on Ubuntu, open the terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git

Miniconda¶

To run Jupyter notebooks on your computer, you will need to install the web-based platform JupyterLab. But JupyterLab relies on Python, so we need to install Python first. We can install Python via the \index{miniconda} miniconda Python package distribution.

Windows: To install miniconda on Windows, download the latest Python 64-bit version from here. Once the download has finished, run the installer and accept the default configuration for all pages. After installation, you can open the Anaconda Prompt by opening the Start Menu and searching for the program called “Anaconda Prompt (miniconda3)”. When this opens, you will see a prompt similar to (base) C:\Users\your_name.

MacOS: To install miniconda on MacOS, you will need to use a different installation method depending on the type of processor chip your computer has.

If your Mac computer has an Intel x86 processor chip you can download the latest Python 64-bit version from here. After the download has finished, run the installer and accept the default configuration for all pages.

If your Mac computer has an Apple M1 processor chip you can download the latest Python 64-bit version from here. After the download has finished, you need to run the downloaded script in the terminal using a command like:

bash path/to/Miniconda3-latest-MacOSX-arm64.sh

Make sure to replace path/to/ with the path of the folder containing the downloaded script. Most computers will save downloaded files to the Downloads folder. If this is the case for your computer, you can run the script in the terminal by typing:

bash Downloads/Miniconda3-latest-MacOSX-arm64.sh

The instructions for the installation will then appear. Follow the prompts and agree to accepting the license, the default installation location, and to running conda init, which makes conda available from the terminal.

Ubuntu: To install miniconda on Ubuntu, first download the latest Python 64-bit version from here. After the download has finished, open the terminal and execute the following command:

bash path/to/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh

Make sure to replace path/to/ with the path of the folder containing the downloaded script. Most often this file will be downloaded to the Downloads folder. If this is the case for your computer, you can run the script in the terminal by typing:

bash Downloads/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh

The instructions for the installation will then appear. Follow the prompts and agree to accepting the license, the default installation location, and to running conda init, which makes conda available from the terminal.

JupyterLab¶

With miniconda set up, we can now install JupyterLab \index{JupyterLab installation} and the Jupyter Git \index{git!Jupyter extension} extension. Type the following into the Anaconda Prompt (Windows) or the terminal (MacOS and Ubuntu) and press enter:

conda install -c conda-forge -y jupyterlab
conda install -y nodejs
pip install --upgrade jupyterlab-git

To test that your JupyterLab installation is functional, you can type jupyter lab into the Anaconda Prompt (Windows) or terminal (MacOS and Ubuntu) and press enter. This should open a new tab in your default browser with the JupyterLab interface. To exit out of JupyterLab you can click File -> Shutdown, or go to the terminal from which you launched JupyterLab, hold Ctrl, and press C twice.

To improve the experience of using R in JupyterLab, you should also add an extension that allows you to set up keyboard shortcuts for inserting text. By default, this extension creates shortcuts for inserting two of the most common R operators: <- and |>. Type the following in the Anaconda Prompt (Windows) or terminal (MacOS and Ubuntu) and press enter:

jupyter labextension install @techrah/text-shortcuts

R, R packages, and the IRkernel¶

To have the software \index{R installation} used in this book available to you in JupyterLab, you will need to install the R programming language, several R packages, and the \index{kernel!installation} IRkernel. To install versions of these that are compatible with the accompanying worksheets, type the command shown below into the Anaconda Prompt (Windows) or terminal (MacOS and Ubuntu).

conda env update --file https://raw.githubusercontent.com/UBC-DSCI/data-science-a-first-intro-worksheets/main/environment.yml

This command installs the specific R and package versions specified in the environment.yml file found in the worksheets repository. We will always keep the versions in the environment.yml file updated so that they are compatible with the exercise worksheets that accompany the book.

You can also install the latest version of R and the R packages used in this book by typing the commands shown below in the Anaconda Prompt (Windows) or terminal (MacOS and Ubuntu) and pressing enter. Be careful though: this may install package versions that are incompatible with the worksheets that accompany the book; the automated exercise feedback might tell you your answers are not correct even though they are!
conda install -c conda-forge -y \
  r-base \
  r-cowplot \
  r-ggally \
  r-gridextra \
  r-irkernel \
  r-kknn \
  r-rpostgres \
  r-rsqlite \
  r-scales \
  r-testthat \
  r-tidymodels \
  r-tidyverse \
  r-tinytex \
  unixodbc

LaTeX¶

To be able to render .ipynb files to .pdf you need to install a LaTeX distribution. These can be quite large, so we will opt to use tinytex, a light-weight cross-platform, portable, and easy-to-maintain LaTeX distribution based on TeX Live.

MacOS: To install tinytex we need to make sure that /usr/local/bin is writable. To do this, type the following in the terminal:

sudo chown -R $(whoami):admin /usr/local/bin

Note: You might be asked to enter your password during installation.

All operating systems: To install LaTeX, open JupyterLab by typing jupyter lab in the Anaconda Prompt (Windows) or terminal (MacOS and Ubuntu) and press Enter. Then from JupyterLab, open an R console, type the commands listed below, and press Shift + Enter to install tinytex:

tinytex::install_tinytex()
tinytex::tlmgr_install(c("eurosym", 
                         "adjustbox",
                         "caption",
                         "collectbox",
                         "enumitem",
                         "environ",
                         "fp",
                         "jknapltx",
                         "ms",
                         "oberdiek",
                         "parskip",
                         "pgf",
                         "rsfs",
                         "tcolorbox",
                         "titling",
                         "trimspaces",
                         "ucs",
                         "ulem",
                         "upquote"))

Ubuntu: To append the TinyTex executables to our PATH we need to edit our .bashrc file. The TinyTex executables are usually installed in ~/bin. Thus, add the lines below to the bottom of your .bashrc file (which you can open by nano ~/.bashrc and save the file:

# Append TinyTex executables to the path
export PATH="$PATH:~/bin"

Note: If you used nano to open your .bashrc file, follow the keyboard shortcuts at the bottom of the nano text editor to save and close the file.

Finishing up installation¶

It is good practice to restart all the programs you used when installing this software stack before you proceed to doing your data analysis. This includes restarting JupyterLab as well as the terminal (MacOS and Ubuntu) or the Anaconda Prompt (Windows). This will ensure all the software and settings you put in place are correctly sourced.

Downloading the worksheets for this book¶

The worksheets containing practice exercises for this book can be downloaded by visiting https://github.com/UBC-DSCI/data-science-a-first-intro-worksheets, clicking the green “Code” button, and then selecting “Download ZIP”. The worksheets are contained within the compressed zip folder that will be downloaded. Once you unzip the downloaded file, you can open the folder and run each worksheet using Jupyter. See Chapter @ref(getting-started-with-jupyter) for instructions on how to use Jupyter.

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Setting up your computer {#move-to-your-own-machine}

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