Problems following ODOT tutorials using local install (PC)

I forgot to mention something really cool about Nitrous. When you set up your first box, it asks you what stack you'd like to use. Obviously for these lessons you'll be selecting Ruby/Rails, and it sets it all up for you. So you basically just start up an environment and it's ready to go for you to follow along with lessons. I started using Nitrous after going through the Ruby installation on Linux, so I don't feel like I missed out on that learning process, but there's something to be said for just being able to jump right into learning the language without having to deal with problematic installs. It sounds like you already went through the installation process on Windows, so you might appreciate not having to deal with that again.

You should also check out Cloud9, I used it for one project and it worked great.

Are you familiar with 'Nitrous' that Keri talks about?

Are ANY of the languages worth learning Windows-friendly? I know Java and Javascript are, but I see Ruby on Rails as THE one to learn right now to become really useful and employable.

Pretty frustrating, since Macs are so RIDICULOUSLY expensive, plus I actually like the current Windows and have all my cloud storage setup through it etc. (And there are some things I don't like about Macs, such as Apple's strategy of forcing you to upgrade much more frequently than you would with PC's. Another 1000 pounds to shell out already? Wonderful...)

Oh, I'm a certified Apple product hater, so you don't have to convince me :). That is why I really like working under Ubuntu (I bought a dedicated Lenovo machine for this, before that I used Ubuntu VM on VMWare Player under Windows for many months) - it's free, it's Unix-based (so you can easily follow tutorials made using Mac, which is 99% of them as far as I can see) and it's quite easy to use, Rails works much faster compared to Windows, you get less problems and more support online from other users. Working under Unix-based system also makes you more employable, since you will likely be working under Mac or Linux once you get a Rails developer job and Linux console is pretty much the same as Mac console.

Nitrous and Cloud9 are basically the same thing - they give you a whole IDE for working with Rails projects online, so you can use ANY operating system, you just need a browser. So there are a lot of options for you, try them. Play around with Nitrous and Cloud9 (the newest Rails tutorial by Hartl takes you through CLoud9 configuration and even provides you with a dedicated environment for that specific tutorial https://www.railstutorial.org/book ), try using a Linux virtual machine or live CD/USB.

For cloud storage, I currently only use Dropbox, which is nicely integrated and synchronized between my Windows, my Ubuntu Virtual Machine and my Ubuntu laptop. I see a trend where even Java and Scala developers use Mac machines, I will never understand this whole fad.

Of course it's worth considering! And you don't have to install it right now, just create a live USB and try it out.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

Make some space for "persistence", so that you can install some stuff like Ruby, Rails and an editor (I recommend free Atom https://atom.io/ or evaluation version of Sublime Text). Treehouse even has a course that makes you familiar with the Console (applicable in both Mac and Linux systems). There are whole tutorials on installing Rails environment:

https://gorails.com/setup/ubuntu/14.04

And like I said, LOTS of help online, just google anything.

Ubuntu works very well with Lenovo, because they usually have most of the drivers for devices used in Lenovo machines; a lot of Lenovo laptops even have Ubuntu certification of compatibility. Since using a USB stick to run a system doesn't interfere with your Windows installation, it's safe and you can resign at any point without any consequences, just turn off the computer and pull out the usb ;).

Yeah, the computer will treat the USB as the hard drive with installed operating system. I know it's quite new for a Windows user, but it's a standard for Linux ;). I never let go of Windows completely, I still have it on my "stationary" laptop because I sometimes need to use some applications written in .NET and I occasionally like to play some more demanding games, so Windows is a must ;). Try Nitrous or Cloud9 first. If you like it, you can work in your browser from now on. Try Linux sooner or later, since, like I said, it is a skill that you will eventually need.

I agree with Maciej when he says you should eventually learn Linux because it's a necessary skill. I love Nitrous and plan to use it regularly (will give Cloud9 a go now as well), but it's still helpful to be able to find my way around Linux which is why I choose to run a VM.

If your priority is a "stable dev environment", it's going to be difficult to do that with just Windows. I don't think anyone would suggest you let go of Windows completely. That's certainly not what I've done. As Maciej said in another comment, Nitrous and Cloud9 are both browser based, so you can use them in any OS - which was the main selling point for me.

Git Bash under Windows is a kind of Unix console emulator that lets you run Unix console commands under Windows and has git commands already available. I used it under Windows for all my console things before I started using Linux. I also liked using CMDER. The built-in Windows Command Line doesn't let you do most stuff from the tutorials. I never used Git Shell, so can't say much here. I suppose it's something similar to Git Bash.

Good luck with your endeavors and have fun with exploring new IDEs and systems :)

Good luck! I think you'll really like the easy of use when it comes to Nitrous. It's the quickest way to get up and running right now, with minimal setup. :)

At some point, definitely consider trying out a Linux VM or USB. It's worthwhile to have that knowledge, even if you don't use it often.

Yeah, you can absolutely do that! Dual booting is super common, and there's tons of tutorials available. Just Google "dual boot windows and linux" or something similar. This was one of the results that came up for me when I searched just that:

http://itsfoss.com/install-ubuntu-1404-dual-boot-mode-windows-8-81-uefi/

You said you had a newish laptop, so I'm assuming it has Windows 8.1. The method is similar for all versions of Windows, but if you've never done it before, it would probably be easier for you to use a guide that matches your specific version.

You'll notice that Step 2. is to Create a Live USB of Ubuntu (You can use Linux Mint, or whatever else you'd like. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu.) This is what Maciej had suggested previously. When using this USB, you can work off of it just like it's installed on your system, but you also have the option to use it to install onto a partition. Maybe play around with whatever version of Linux you've chosen on the USB a bit before committing to installing it on your system.

There's no real catch. If you're working with any Adobe programs like Photoshop, you'll obviously have to be in Windows to work with those. Then you'll need to boot into Linux to do whatever other programming stuff you've got going on. So switching back and forth might be annoying, unless you have a fast system where boot up time is minimal.

I think for me, what I enjoy about using a VM (running Linux in a virtual machine) is that I can use Windows and Linux programs side by side with no switching back and forth. AND, this is the best part, if I muck something up I can quickly just make a new VM with everything all nice and pretty again. It's great for learning, I think. With a hard install (I don't know if that's a technical term, but I'm using it) onto a partition of the drive, it's more involved to format and reinstall. Not difficult, but your computer is tied up while it does all that.

But hey, messing around with this stuff and finding what you'd like is part of the fun. Just backup your important files while you experiment getting a setup that works for you.

I don't know that it's necessarily unstable, but lack of security is a drawback (as there is no login) and also it can run kind of slow. I wouldn't ever use a Live USB for ongoing production, but they're nice to have a working "install" of whatever Linux distribution you choose to play around with. I've mentioned it a few times here, but I'd much rather use Linux in a VM than use is consistently on a USB.

Yes, basically. There are ways to access files on other partitions though. You can search something like "access windows files from dual boot ubuntu" and see what comes up. You're just mounting your Windows partition from within Ubuntu to get access to those files.

I'm not crazy about this, which is why I don't do it. Something feels icky about it to me, which is probably irrational. But I just feel like there's more room to mess things up when you're crossing things together like that. What I do to have access to documents from anywhere it to just save everything in either Dropbox or Google Drive. That way you've got access to documents and files, but you're not accessing all of the other stuff that you don't need like system files or whatever.

You don't have to share anything if you don't want to. It can be set up like two entirely separate computers where you can access cloud storage for documents, etc. 10TB is insane! I don't even know what I'd do with that.

Back to the VM. You wouldn't need fast internet to set that up. I mean, yeah you'd need to download the program (VirtualBox, for example), but then the VM is running on your machine. It's not something you're accessing over the internet. I only have 6GB of RAM and my Linux VM runs just fine when I give it 1GB (you can set the resources you'd like to allow it to use). I'd be willing to bet your laptop has better specs than my desktop, and I don't have any issues so you'll probably be even better off.

Yeah, it kinda works this way - all separate by default, unless you configure it a bit. To do that, I think you need a live USB either way (they give you the option to just run the system from USB or install it on your hard drive, one device, two functions - you should try Ubuntu and Mint as live USBs and decide which one to use, they are quite similar, but you might like one more than the other). Make sure you read everything you can about potential problems with dual boot for your version of Windows. There are some situations where additional configuration is required (depends on types of BIOS) or it might screw your booting altogether, preventing you from running ANY system. I never did dual boot, so I can't help you with that, but there are lots of resources online.

VM like Virtual Box or VMWare Player does not depend on your internet connection - it's a huge Windows file that emulates a physical hard drive which you open in a program and it basically thinks it's dealing with a whole computer and an OS in that file ;).

Cloud9 and Nitrous work in the browser :). They are cloud-based IDE's (well, kinda like small virtual machines emulated in the browser).

Without listing out a ton of different things, which could vary based on your setup and what you'll actually be doing, I'm just going to tell you my plan.

While learning using the lessons found here and a few found elsewhere, I intend to use a combination of Nitrous and a Linux VM. I'm still not 100% sure where I want to "settle in" and therefore don't want to continually mess with a full install of Linux on a partition, since I believe I'll constantly be changing things and probably messing up along the way. I'm using Nitrous for Ruby lessons, and will probably do so for Python as well. It's easy setup and it just works.

Currently, I'm doing the lessons in Database Foundations in a Linux VM because I need to use MySQL Workbench. Maybe in the future I won't want to use MySQL and I'll want the freedom to mess around with something else. If that's the case, then in my mind it's much simpler to delete that VM and create a new one (it's a quick process) in order to have a fresh OS install. I could have a VM for every single type of Linux distribution out there + 5 versions of Windows if I wanted to and delete/create them at will.

Eventually, I'll get to a point where I will have found my focus. Maybe that's Ruby and I'll want to keep a solid Linux Ruby environment at all times so I'll want a Windows/Linux dual boot setup. Maybe I'll want to focus on JavaScript which I can do from Windows and I'll keep the VM situation going for when the need arises. If that were the case, I'd probably set up a Linux partition just because it's fun and I like to use Mint for most things and I'll keep Windows for gaming. Or heck, maybe I'll get crazy and become a C# developer and then I'll just stick to 100% Windows for some reason.

Really, what I'm saying is there are 100 different reasons to do anything and you just have to jump in and find something that works for what you want to do. Then, in three months (or even sooner!), you'll shake things up and decide you want to do something else. There are no rules. :)

If I had to make a suggestion for you right this very second, I'd say look into setting up a VM. It's cool to see a virtual computer running Linux inside a Windows based program. Plus you can do a fair amount of stuff in there (in my case, playing with MySQL at the moment). It's easy to change your mind. If you want to start a dual boot instead, then that's cool too. It's not set in stone, by any means, but it's a little more work to scrap that for something else.

This is all, of course, just my opinion. I don't think there's a right or wrong way. Say, for example, you just want to start doing a bunch of Ruby stuff and you don't want to mess with ANY of this other craziness. Then that's the beauty of Nitrous. You can just pull that up in your browser and start coding. Some days that's all I feel like doing. Other days I'm trying to figure out some weird hiccup in Linux. But then, I like variety so that might just be me.

With dual boot, the currently running system has access to 100% of resources (RAM, CPU etc.). So when you run Windows, it can go max. frequency and use max. RAM, if you run Linux, it can do the same. With VM, you are already running Windows, so some of your resources are already taken, then you can set up what amount of free resources (the ones not already in use) will be available for the system in the virtual machine. Linux works well even in VM, because it's much, much lighter and more optimized than Windows. It can easily work with 4 or 8 GB or RAM and 1GHz of CPU whereas Windows would lag a lot.

Agree with Keri :) (published my answer above before I could read her comment)

You can experiment more with the VMs, try different Linux distros (Mint and Ubuntu are not the only ones) even copy your machines and if you screw something up with the system, it will not be as painful as a fully-installed OS :)

Yeah, you'd be fine even with running 3 Linux VMs at the same moment with this :). Go crazy!

Wow... yeah, you've got nothing to worry about! Have fun. :)

OK, if VirtuaBox had problems, give VMWare Player a try (it's also free). I used it without any problems (still do on my gaming Windows machine). Yeah, if you have USB 3.0, it will be very fast :). Good to hear you like it!

Depends if your flashdrive is also USB 3.0 compatible. Even if it's not, Linux is generally fast and eats less resources ;)

I'm not sure if pure copy and paste would do. You'd need to make it bootable using the software which you used before to make this one [you did, right?]. The process creates some special hidden files on the drive and perhaps adds some special attributes to the partition.

So I guess you could make a new bootable from the same image and THEN copy and overwrite all the files from the old USB and it should then work and have everything set up the same way it was. But that's just my theory, never doe this myself :)

I assume you used a program that cloned an ISO image into the USB stick and made it bootable :)

1. Yeah, everything is kept on the USB, things are installed on it (in the past there were only live CDs and they asked you to give them some free space on the drive to write stuff). I don't think it has ANY access to your Windows drive without special configuration.

2. I personally use Dropbox and keep all my projects there, in separate folders. I install Dropbox and log in to the same account on all my machines, this way I can always access them from all my computers (even from Nexus tablet if need be). It's all synchronized automatically, so when I change something while on my Windows machine, it gets updated on my Linux machines as soon as I start them. Dropbox has great support for Ubuntu, even gives you a status icon that tells you when it's syncing etc. Git files are always kept in project folders - it creates a special hidden folder inside your project and writes all the commits there. So you have access to the same git state from all machines, you just need to install git on all your machines.

You should do Treehouse's Git course. I also highly recommend doing the Git Immersion tutorial and doing every single step in it. It will click at some point, trust me ;). Later you can upload your projects to Git to have constant access to them from the browser and show off your work in the future ;)

If you move your project folder somewhere else, its associated git stuff is also moved with it, so no worries here.

Hmm, that didn't work. Trying something else!

I think you just have to go to your Software Center (press the Windows key on the keyboard and start writing Software, click the orange square thingie) and search for Dropbox in the search box, click it when it's found and install :)

Ok I did it. Just downloaded the file in the browser, here and ran it. No console stuff required. Who would have thought it could be so easy! ;-)

https://www.dropbox.com/install

Or just download the .deb file for ubuntu and open it: https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx

Yeah, Debian and its derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint etc.) have this easy system ;)

Go a bit up, I think I posted a link to a site I used myself. nodejs is required for some stuff related to Rails, find out how to install it. When having a choice - RVM or RBENV - don't install both, you have to choose one. I personally use RVM, just because it was the first thing I installed and it stuck with me since ;).

This was what I followed on all my machines: https://gorails.com/setup/ubuntu/14.04

I'm part way through this now though http://railsapps.github.io/installrubyonrails-ubuntu.html

When I did this though: sudo apt-get install nodejs

It says 'Unable to locate package nodejs'!

Eh?

I'm a bit scared of trying something else, because I don't really know what the hell's going on!

You need to add a nodejs repository. These three commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs

Whenever you do install, it goes to all repositories it knows to look for that package. It didn't find nodejs, because you didn't have the repository with nodejs on your list. So the first command adds it. The second one makes the system aware of the new repo and all the packages and their versions in that repo. Third one installs node.

No worries, you will get used to it :)

Always google your errors with additional keyword 'ubuntu'. There's A LOT of support out there, your nodejs problem was the first and second result ;)

Some guy has a solution that worked for him: http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.docker.user/201

What's a Dockerfile?

I think this means you just have to run this command:

echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

With sudo in front if that failed:

sudo echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

Sudo gives you temporary admin authorization. Normally you can't edit important settings and files.

Ah, got 'permission denied' even when using sudo

Did you enter the proper password?

Hmmm...if it didn't ask for password, then it didn't need one. That's odd. Then try this:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

And manually paste that line at the bottom and save the file.

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe

Ok, did that, and tried again, but got: bash: /etc/apt/sources.list: Permission denied

OK that is super weird because you should be able to do ANYTHING when doing sudo. It should be asking you about your password which you should have set after first run. So I assume that live USB works a bit differently for some reason...all I can suggest now is describing this on askubuntu and waiting for someone more experienced to tell you what to do.

Another thing I found maybe it will work:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

Found here (changed the content a bit): http://askubuntu.com/questions/279853/permission-denied-error-when-editing-etc-ld-so-conf/279855#279855

The last thing you could try is running root shell using this command:

sudo -i

And then running this, without sudo:

echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

Yeah, now try doing the install nodejs thing. It returns nothing because it simply added something to a file.

Sorry, not 'permission denied' - it's the 'unmet dependencies' thing again.

which command?

OK, askubuntu is the only thing I can recommend now. I never ever had this error, so I assume it has something to do with the fact that this is a live USB and not a full-blown installation.

(outside root, back into the normal $ prompt): sudo apt-get install nodejs

If I link to this page, will people be able to see it?

No idea. I'm not sure they will want to scroll this up and down. Try to describe your steps and tell them what errors you get. Include the version of Ubuntu and the fact that it's on USB.

OK. Sorry you had to go through that. I had no idea it would do something like this...

I just forgot to mention - after adding this line you should do sudo apt-get update and then install nodejs. Without update, the system is not aware of the new source you gave it. It might help...no idea.

Nice! On the brighter side, we also both learned something ;).

Great :). So, are you using rvm?

I'll take a look at that, Maciej. Something I'm thinking right now is that I'd like an easy way to change to my dropbox projects folder instantly, instead of typing in the whole path all the time. Or setting it as my home directory, or something? I'm not sure.

I have it in my home directory, which means I just open the terminal, write cd Dr, then press TAB and the command is completed for me automatically, so I press enter.

Treehouse's Console course is very useful for Linux users (and Mac users, since it works the same; only Windows command prompt is the weird kid in that bunch and doesn't work the same way).

Hi Maciej, how's it going? Things are going pretty well here; I'm part way through the OneMonthRails tutorial and I've so far managed to overcome the inevitable problems and errors that crop up. You can even see the humble beginnings of the app here: http://yorkshiremanpinteresting.herokuapp.com/

I've stopped syncing with Dropbox, because I kept getting 'unbuntu conflicting copy' everywhere. That was a pain in the ass, so I've paused the syncing on it and of course I'm frequently pushing to github for backup.

How do I move my 'Projects' folder out of my Dropbox folder? The reason being is that I think I would like it elsewhere on my hard drive, and then if I want to develop it on a different computer, I could simply upload that folder to Dropbox and then download it onto the other computer, and create a git repository within that local folder on the new computer. What are your thoughts on this? Does that make sense to you? Or could I do that with Github instead?

On another note, it's really exciting when you see what you can do with RoR, isn't it? The possibilities are endless, and it's such a good system. I've already had some good ideas for my own web app.

All the hard work I've done over the last several months learning html, css and some RoR has really paid off, too. Even though I just default to Bootstrap for my static page builds now, it's still really handy to actually UNDERSTAND how it works, and modify the markup etc. I don't think I'll be floating my own inline blocks for a while, but it's nice to know that I could if I wanted to!

Also, the more hardcore Ruby code I've been trying to get my head around in the Treehouse tutorials has been really useful so far during this tutorial, too. So far, they've used some fairly simple 'for' and 'else' blocks, with arguments, that sort of thing, and if it was completely new to me it would have been quite confusing. I've even applied a couple of simple modifications myself that weren't part of the tutorial.

It's still pretty overwhelming, but the sense of power and possibility is pretty amazing and exciting.

(I do know there will be some 'dark times' ahead though lol, but that's all part of the journey)

I'm glad you're making progress and I know the feeling :). The Dropbox error is very weird, I've never seen it before.

You can move your project folders wherever you want, this does not have any influence on git and github things. It works like this: when you're in the console, and you cd to a project and that project has git initiated in it (it has hidden .git folder in it), you can use git commands in that folder and you have access to all the history of changes, everything that is available in git for that project. It doesn't matter where you put that folder, as long as it has this .git folder inside. It also contains configuration for remote repositories, such as github or heroku. These also don't change if you move the folder. If you move that folder to another computer, it should still retain all the git stuff in it, including the remote github repo address. the only difference would be that the new computer needs to have ssh keys registered on github site to allow pushing (you can generate new key or copy fromyour original computer).

You can also do a pull from github on the new computer, this should also have the .git folder and all the commit history in it (it will not have the so-called reflog, which is the last-resort thing for when you somehow screw up your old commits, play with history etc. it contains everything, including the commits that got changed, merged etc. - it's only stored locally, it is not carried through github). So it's your choice, as always I recommend trying every option to get used to how git works :).

Aaaah, of course. That makes sense. Forgot about that. Thanks!