Setting up the CSC 151 Environment

If you follow along with the normal class schedule, you should set up the environment by doing the labs. You will install standard programs in the introductory Linux lab. You will set up some custom libraries in the lab on drawings as values (and be reminded of how to do so in some subsequent labs). This document provides a bit more background and a bit more detail.

The Short Version

If you don't have them already, create taskbar icons for GIMP and DrDracket by dragging them from the Application menu to the task bar.
Open a terminal window.
Type /home/rebelsky/bin/csc151-setup
Close your terminal window

Background

CSC 151 uses two “off the shelf” programs, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and DrRacket. It also uses some libraries GIMP and DrRacket to allow the two programs to communicate with each other. (Both the programs and the libraries also rely on a host of standard Linux software installed in the MathLAN.) Hence, to configure your MathLAN account to work in CSC 151, you should install icons for GIMP and DrRacket if you don't have them already. You will also need to tell each application where to find the libraries. You'll also need to know how to tell the applications to communicate.

Installing Icons

To install an icon, you simply need to click and drag it from the applictions menu (in the lower-left-hand corner of your screen) into the task bar (at the bottom of your screen). GIMP is in the Graphics submenu. DrRacket is in the the Development submenu.

GIMP Plugins

You can just type /home/rebelsky/bin/csc151-setup to install these plugins.

GIMP allows programmers (and users) to extend it using small programs called “plugins”. We've written plugins that allow GIMP to communicate over DBus and to add a few more features. Many GIMP plugins are installed in a common system area. However, we don't have permissions to install them there, and we anticipate updating the plugins. Hence, we have you install the plugins in your own account. All of the plugins that you will use are stored in /glimmer/share/gimp/plugins.

gimp-dbus permits the GIMP to communicate over DBus.
ggimp-irgb-components and ggimp-irgb-new help GIMP deal with an integer RGB representation that's faster for DrRacket to process.
ggimp-rgb-list and ggimp-rgb-parse provide mechanisms for getting color names and converting color names to integer RGB representation.

There are a variety of ways to install personal GIMP plugins, but all of them put the plugin in /home/username/.gimp-2.8/plug-ins. Since we may be updating these plugins, we have you install “soft links”

First, we make sure that the directory exists.

$ mkdir -P /home/user/.gimp-2.8/plug-ins

Next, we create soft links for each of the plugins.

$ ln -s /glimmer/share/gimp/plugins/plugin /home/user/.gimp-2.8/plug-ins

By the way, if you want to see the source code to these plugins, it lives on github at https://github.com/GlimmerLabs/gimp-dbus.

Installing Racket Libraries

You can just type /home/rebelsky/bin/csc151-setup to install these libraries.

We use two libraries for Racket in CSC 151. The louDBus library allows Racket to communicate with a variety of other programs using the DBus protocol. The Glimmer Improved GIMP Library for Scripting (or gigls) adds specific resources for communicating with GIMP and making it easier to program GIMP.

On most MathLAN workstations, louDBus is installed in /glimmer/lib/louDBus and gigls is installed in /glimmer/lib/gigls. (If they are not installed, you should let us know ASAP.)

To tell Racket where to look for libraries, you use the raco link command. Hence, you could type the following (without the dollar sign prompts).

$ raco link /glimmer/lib/louDBus
$ raco link /glimmer/lib/gigls

But most people will find it easier to just use the script we've written.

By the way, if you want to see the source code to these libraries, it lives on github at https://github.com/GlimmerLabs/louDBus and http://github.com/GlimmerLabs/gigls.

Choosing the DrRacket Language

It turns out that DrRacket can support a variety of programming languages (most of them variants of Scheme). We'd like to configure DrRacket so it's easy for us to tell it what language to use. In the Language menu, select Choose Language.... In the dialog box that appears, click on Use the language declared in the source. Then click Ok. Finally, click Run. That should be it - you're ready to go.