Software for CS111

This page provides links to download software for this class onto your personal laptop. In an ideal scenario, all three programs would be downloaded to your personal laptop before the first day of class.

CS111 students need the following:

  1. Thonny (to write/run Python code)
  2. CyberDuck or WinSCP (to download starter code and upload your pset code)
  3. Download and run a test Jupyter notebook (see more details below)

If you encounter problems with the installation process, please email Peter Mawhorter (pmawhort).

Instructions

1. Thonny

The Thonny logo, a hand-drawn T and H You can download installers for Thonny below. By clicking on the blue links below, the installer will automatically download to your machine. Double-click on the installer, and it will start the process of installing Thonny.

You'll see this screen when the installer starts:

Thonny 3.3.13 installer welcome screen

Click through each of the sections (License, Destination Select, Installation Type, Installation, Summary). When given options, if you are uncertain, use the default suggested by the installer. Eventually, you will arrive at this screen:

Thonny 3.3.13 installer finish screen

which tells you that Thonny was successfully installed on your machine. We will review how to use Thonny during the first lab.

2. CyberDuck or WinSCP

The Cyberduck logo; a rubber duck Go to the CyberDuck download page and click on the link for your operating system (Mac or Windows). You do not need to get a registration key, and you do not need to donate (CyberDuck is free).

Open the downloaded file to install. We will go over the instructions for using CyberDuck during the first lab.

Here are some reference pages on CyberDuck:

NOTE: Many students who use PCs say that WinSCP works better for them than CyberDuck. The WinSCP logo; a lock with blue and green arrows If you have a PC, we suggest you download WinSCP rather than CyberDuck. Here is the WinSCP download page.

Extra Info

3. Test a Jupyter notebook

We'll use Jupyter notebooks in lab where you can write and run python code. Please use this link to download a zip file containing a Jupyter notebook (along with some other files).

Instructions:

  1. Clicking on the link above should automatically download the zip file to your computer.
  2. Double-click (on a Mac) or right-click and choose "Extract here" (on Windows) to extract the zip file, creating a folder with the same name.
  3. Using Thonny, open the "launchNotebook.py" file in that folder.
  4. Click the Thonny run button (or choose "Run current script" from the "Run" menu) to run the file. It may take a moment as it has to install some things, but this should only be necessary once. It will launch a tab in your web browser displaying the notebook when it's done.
  5. Make sure the notebook is working. It should look something like this: The example notebook open in a browser tab, with the title CS 111 Example Lecture and a single cell of code.

If you run into trouble following these steps, please email Peter Mawhorter (pmawhort) for help.