After a few weeks of using Kasm, I eventually switched to Windows because it was much easier to use and was very responsive.

Setting up Tools on Windows

Windows OS is one of the most widely used operating systems, but it lacks support for many common tools which are native to Linux and other UNIX type systems (e.g. MacOS). In 2016, Microsoft released the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that allows you to interact with a Linux terminal on your Windows laptop or PC!

Graphic of WSL

1. Install/Setup Visual Studio Code

VSCode is an integrated development environment (IDE) that we can write code in.

  1. Download Visual Studio Code from this website

  2. Ensure that VSCode is added to your PATH

    • During installation, check the box “Add to PATH” in the setup wizard.

    • This enables you to open VSCode directly from a terminal using code .

    • If you missed this step, you can fix it by doing the below steps:

      • Open the Start menu, search for Environment Variables, and click Edit the system environment variables.
      • In the System Properties window, click Environment Variables….
      • Under System variables, find and edit the Path variable.
      • Add the path to your VSCode installation (e.g., C:\Users\<YourUser>\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin ).

2. Install Git

  1. Install the Git Config Manager from this website. Make sure to download the correct standalone installers.

  2. Click the default option on each prompt.

3. Install WSL (Ubuntu 22.04)

  1. Open Windows Terminal
    • Search for Windows Terminal in the Start menu.

  • Install Ubuntu 24.04 under WSL

    • Run: wsl --install -d Ubuntu-24.04

    • When prompted, create a username and password for your Linux account. While entering the password, you won’t see characters echoing- don’t worry, this is normal.

  • Exit the Ubuntu shell after setup

    • When the install finishes you’ll be at an Ubuntu prompt, so type exit to leave the WSL session.

  • Make Ubuntu 24.04 the default WSL distribution

    • Run: wsl --set-default Ubuntu-24.04

  • Launch WSL anytime from Windows

    • From the Windows terminal, type wsl to start your default Linux distribution.

4. Clone Repo

Note: UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE: Assume all commands listed from this point onwards are in WSL: and NOT on your Windows Terminal.

  1. Create a new folder for your repositories with the mkdir command.
    • You can organize your folders however you want. I have one folder called neur0n-7 for my student repo, one called opencs for the pages repo creating by Open Coding Society, and one called CompSciTeam for my team repo.
  2. In your folder, run git clone https://github.com/[YOUR USERNAME]/student.git.
    • For example, I would run git clone https://github.com/neur0n-7/student.git.

5. Run Setup Scripts

  1. ON YOUR WINDOWS TERMINAL, git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe"
  2. Run the activation script to set up git and packages: ./scripts/activate.sh
  3. Run the setup script for your virtual environment: ./scripts/venv.sh
  4. Run source venv/bin/activate before making code!

Troubleshooting

Just to make sure everything works fine :)

python --version
pip --version
ruby -v
bundle -v
gem --version
git config --global --list

If any of these fail, go back and retry the steps from above (especially step 5!).

Commits showing up under a different username?

First check your .bashrc file: cat ~/.bashrc

If you see any lines like

git config --global user.name jmort1021
git config --global user.email [any email that isn't yours]

Replace the invalid username and email with your own information. Then, run your .bashrc file (source ~/.bashrc) to apply those changes. In your terminal, run:

git config --global user.name
git config --global user.email

to double check that your changes are updated. If it still isn’t updated, run

git config --global user.name [your username]
git config --global user.email [your email]