I began a journey several months ago to see what it would take to be a web developer. After much research I decided upon Thinkful which I highly recommend. I quickly found out that I needed a new laptop to be able to work on assignments over my lunch break and money was tight. An uncommon solution emerged. The HP14 chromebook. With a couple hours and $350 the HP14 becomes a python web development machine which rivals laptops 3 times it’s cost.
All development will be done natively, there’s been much talk about chromebooks and web app IDE’s. I found out quickly that this did not work well for me. It’s really hard to beat a native environment configured with all professional level tools that other developers will be using. Your mileage may vary of course.
Were going to be doing a side installation of Linux beside the current Chrome OS using ChrUbuntu. We will be able to hot switch between the two using some simple keyboard shortcuts. Some people may have been turned off by mention of Linux. Let me tell you, Elementary OS (eOS) is an awesome distro of Linux which I think will change the way you think of it. Check it out here and here .
I am a new Linux user so I am simply compiling everything I came across on the internet. I can vouch that everything works if followed per instruction but there may be a better way. Just let me know in the comments.
Let’s get started.
###Install eOS###
Follow this excellent guide from +Jean-Louis Nguyen which walks you thru every step, no knowledge of command line or linux required. Second time around this took me an hour to complete. Will vary based on speed of your internet connection.
###Configure Dev Environment###
Now that we have an eOS environment, let’s install and configure all the software we will need for web development. Before we begin, review some tips regarding using eOS on the chromebook.
####Good? Ok let’s go.####
-
####Launch eOS####
-
####CTRL+ALT+T (Open command terminal)#####
sudo apt-get install firefox
Open up firefox to paste the following commands into the terminal
Web Browser - 64 bit Chrome
cd ~/Downloads
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo gdebi google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
y
Video player - VLC Player
sudo apt-get install vlc
File Compression
sudo apt-get install unace rar unrar p7zip-rar p7zip
File Backup - Dropbox
sudo gdebi dropbox_1.6.2_amd64.deb
Start dropbox from Applications menu Follow prompts
Office Compatible - Libre Office (big install)
sudo apt-get install libreoffice
Graphic Editor - Gimp
sudo apt-get install gimp
File cleanup - Bleachbit (CCleaner for Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install bleachbit
Install SublimeText 3
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/sublime-text-3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text-installer
Configure Sublime for Web development
Follow this excellent guide from Michael Herman from RealPython.com
- ####Use CTRL where CMD is referenced ie. (CTRL+SHFT+P)
- ####Jump right to Install Package Control
**Install Git **
sudo apt-get install git-core
Install Sqlite3
sudo apt-get install sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev
Install ez_setup
wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/ez_setup.py -O - | sudo python
Install pip
sudo easy_install pip
Install virtualenv
sudo pip install virtualenv
Dependencies for SQLAlchemy
sudo apt-get build-dep python-psycopg2
Heroku Setup
wget -qO- https://toolbelt.heroku.com/install-ubuntu.sh | sh
Make sure your heroku profile is setup up.
heroku login
your email
your password
heroku keys:add
y
mkdir ~/Dropbox/projects
cd ~/Dropbox/projects
git clone https://github.com/heroku/python-getting-started.git
cd python-getting-started
virtualenv --no-site-packages env
source env/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt --allow-all-external
foreman start
Click on hyperlink in terminal window to view local website
"CTRL+C" to kill foreman process
Deploy to Heroku
heroku create
git push heroku master
yes
heroku open