Devbeginnings

Revision 1 as of 2010-08-25 02:01:41

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Ubuntu Development Beginnings

If you are a beginning software developer for Ubuntu or even just beginning software development for the first time on any platform, this guide will provide you with a start by giving an overview of the necessary steps as well as links to more detailed instructions and further resources.

Ubuntu Beginning Development Overview

[with rough guestimates as to how much time each step might take]

=== Create a Launchpad account ===

  • Launchpad (LP) is the hub for most Ubuntu development.

[20 minutes] https://help.launchpad.net/YourAccount/NewAccount

The following steps are specific to a particular computer you want to use as a Development platform. So if you want to move to a different computer you would need to repeat these steps. To keep it simple to explain we'll assume your development computer is running some form of Ubuntu though many other possibilites are quite workable.

=== Create an SSH Key === (or import an already created one) [up to an hour or more] Log onto LP onto your LP account's 'Overview' page and where it says SSH Keys there is a little yellow round button with a pencil icon on it. Click on that. That will bring up another screen 'Change your SSH settings'. On that screen there is a help link called Importing your SSH key which will take you to: https://help.launchpad.net/YourAccount/CreatingAnSSHKeyPair

=== Verify Bazaar (bzr) is installed === or install it if not. Bazaar is the distributed version control system that Launchpad uses. [10 minutes]

  • a) Bazaar Explorer (bzr-explorer) http://www.ubuntugeek.com/bazaar-explorer-advanced-version-control-made-simple.html a gui wrapper for the CLI bzr is recommended for beginners as an excellent way to get started immediately with bzr, and learn bzr functions. Optionally the program can be set to display a terminal while running its functions which can be very educational and actually help to learn the CLI operations. Additionally it can function as sort of a simple project management program -- almost like an IDE (though without debugging). it shows you each of the files in the project and you can easily click on the file icon and bzr-explorer will open the editor of your choice. Also it gives easy access to functions like showing file diffs and displaying project revisions and the change log. Overall it helps to give an overview of what is going on in all the projects you are working on and provides a conceptual overview of how Bazaar works for beginner to advanced user alike.

At this point you will at least be able to branch code that is on Launch Pad and thereby be ready to start examining project code.

4) Bazaar Branching operations [First time novice: devote at least an hour or more for learning how to and then actually creating your local branch and pulling source from the LP branch. Similar or more time for doing a push of source back up to LP Once experienced: can be done in as little as 10 minutes]

More Resources for the Ubuntu Beginning Developer

  • HowTos

  • Tutorials, documentation, languages pages and other useful links:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BeginnersTeam/FocusGroups/Development/Academy

  • Books (CC)
    • links to Creative Commons books, and other FLOSS resources
  • Reaching the Ubuntu-Beginners-Dev Focus Group

https://launchpad.net/favicon.ico Launchpad: ubuntu-beginners-dev
https://launchpad.net/@@/language IRC: #ubuntu-beginners-dev

CategoryBeginnersTeam