Installing Linux

This guide will walk you through installing Fedora 29 and setting up a development environment. for Java.

While you can use Windows/Mac, all guides and resources will be aimed at Fedora/Linux.

Installing Fedora

Virtual Machine

This is the quickest way to get started without risk of data loss, but requires a decent computer for a pleasant experience.

1. Download a Fedora Workstation ISO from https://getfedora.org/en/
   1. There are alternative desktop environments available at https://spins.fedoraproject.org/
   2. Cinnamon is the closest to the Windows experience but is more resource intensive than LXDE
   3. LXDE is a less attractive (in my opinion) but also a "less resource hungry" Desktop Environment
2. Download and install VirtualBox
3. Install Fedora as a VirtualBox Guest
   1. After creating the virtual machine you may want to increase the amount of processors allocated by going to Settings > System > Processor
   2. Guest additions should be installed already (Try sudo dnf update)
4. It might be a good idea to take a snapshot of your fresh VM at this point. (Optional)

Post Installation Setup

Add user to sudoers file

Future resources will assume your user can use sudo

1. Add user to wheel group. By default users in the wheel group can use sudo.

   su root
   usermod --append --groups wheel <user>
   

2. Restart for changes to take effect

Update

sudo dnf update

Install Zsh

Zsh is similar to bash but has better tab completion and globbing.

Install zsh:

sudo dnf install zsh

Change the default shell:

chsh --shell /bin/zsh <user>

Download config for zsh:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/egeldenhuys/cos212/master/dotfiles/zshrc --output ~/.zshrc
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/egeldenhuys/cos212/master/dotfiles/zshrc.local --output ~/.zshrc.local

Log out and back in for changes to take effect.