What you need to get started
Now let us bring the starting line into perspective, with a quote from Alice in Wonderland:
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning", the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Our story begins at the beginning, with your computer, operating system, a terminal window, text editor, and hardly anything else.
Modern computer
You will need a modern computer, preferably one made in the last few years.
Supported operating system
While we cannot cover every operating system, we will try to cover three of the most popular ones:
Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Windows 7
Ubuntu Linux 10.04 (Lucid)
Tip
The previous operating systems are in no particular order!
While the author's desktop is Mac OS X, the techniques described in this book have been tested on Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux 10.04 virtual machines running in parallel. We will assume you have only one OS, so feel free to skip the sections that are not applicable to you.
If you do not have one of these supported operating systems, a reasonable facsimile will probably do.
Internet connection
You will need a reasonably fast Internet connection, preferably cable, DSL, or any faster one to download the open source software discussed in this book.
Terminal window
We will make frequent use of the following:
Terminal in Max OS X
Command Prompt in Windows 7
GNOME Terminal in Ubuntu Linux
Text editor
You should have a text editor, and be familiar with how to use it. If you need a suggestion, try one of these:
Mac OS X: Textmate (http://macromates.com/,
$55 USD)Windows 7: Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm, free)
Ubuntu Linux: gedit (http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/, free, included with Ubuntu Linux)
If you are a programmer or a system administrator, you may be using Vi or Emacs already, and do not need the author's recommendation.
