Before we get started in the Aggie Makerspace course on source control, there are several things you will need to do to prepare your computer to complete this course. The purpose of this module is to have all necessary software for this course installed and configured, and to have a GitHub student account!
This module can be experience in one of two ways:
- YouTube video available here.
- Full text of the video is available below.
The most important tool we will need for this course is git. Git is a command line utility that can be downloaded for every platform here. Download the installer for your operating system, and install the git tool. For Windows, the default options are all fine.
Once you have installed git, you will access it from the terminal on Linux and MacOS, and from the Git Bash application on Windows.
You must configure a few settings for git before you can use it. Once again, on a MacOS or Linux machine, launch the terminal to access git. On Windows machines, launch the Git Bash application. You should run the following commands to configure git:
git config --global user.name "[USERS FIRST AND LAST NAME]"
git config --global user.email "[USERS EMAIL ADDRESS]"
Generally, in git and GitHub documentation, anything surrounded by brackets [ ] is a placeholder
for the users own information. You should remove the brackets when you add your information. For
example, for the first command I would run git config --global user.name "Chris Cannon".
Atom is a cross platform, open source, "hackable" text editor built by GitHub and deployed using GitHub's Electron technology. Atom is not necessarily required for this course, but you will need a text editor. If you do not already have a favorite text editor, Atom can be downloaded from Atom's website.
You will need a GitHub account to complete this course. Accounts are free and you can sign up on GitHub's Homepage. As a student using GitHub, you are entitled to several free benefits as part of the GitHub Student Developer Pack. Basically, to get the benefits of the GitHub Student Developer Pack, sign up for GitHub using your school email address, or add it to your account later. Once your school email address is associated with your GitHub account, you can sign up for the Student Developer Pack on GitHub Education's Website.
In order to complete this course, you will need to be associated with the MakerSpace on GitHub. First, make sure that you have associated your school email address with your GitHub account, either by signing up with it or adding it under your account settings. Then, email the Aggie MakerSpace GitHub admin at ccannon1@aggies.ncat.edu with your GitHub username to request to join.
The exercise for this module is to complete all configuration above and send me and email asking to join the MakerSpace!