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Many students find it more convenient to use their own computers rather than the machines in the UW CSE instructional labs in the basement of the Allen Center. But the labs already have all the necessary software for CSE 331 installed and configured correctly. While you are welcome to use your own machines and the staff will help to an extent that is feasible for us, it can be difficult to predict and debug every installation/configuration problem.
In the end, the staff, given our limited time, may have to advise you to use the department resources if you are having too much trouble installing your own software. Helping with configuration on your own machine is lower priority than helping students with homework questions, getting grading done, etc. We probably cannot help with software other than Eclipse and the other tools used in the course.
Note that no matter where you work, you will need to remotely log in to the department machine attu to validate your homework submissions in order to make sure you turn in the correct files and your programs compile and run the tests using the compiler and tools the staff will use for grading. Be sure to do this enough in advance of deadlines to avoid issues.
To be clear, you can skip Steps 1 and 2 below unless you are taking the last option.
You want to download Oracle's J2SE v8.0 JDK from their web site. This is somewhat tricky because there are a lot of things on the download page with nearly the same name. For example, the JRE is the Java Runtime Environment which lets you run Java programs, but does not provide the tools for Java development.
Thus, go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/ and make sure that you follow the link labeled Download JDK. Be sure to get Java 8 for the 15au quarter.
The Eclipse project produces several different versions of the environment. The one you should get for CSE331 is the “Java Developer” version available at https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. This version includes the egit plugin that we will use to access git repositories for CSE331. You are also welcome to use the lab machines which also have Eclipse installed.
For almost all of its lifetime, Eclipse did not come with an installer, which confuses many people. Basically, you download it, unzip it into a directory, and then run the executable in that directory to start Eclipse. There are some small bugs in Ant within Eclipse that manifest themselves if it is installed in a directory with spaces in its name, so instead of installing it into a directory such as:
C:\Documents and Settings\Joe User\Desktop\eclipse
or
C:\Program Files\eclipse
use:
C:\eclipse
However, the current version of Eclipse does have a proper installer. We suggest you download that if you are on a Windows machine, run it, and select Eclipse for Java Developers from the available options. It will put Eclipse in an appropriate directory and add Eclipse to the start menu. If you are using a Mac, you can either download the installer and run it, or download Eclipse for Java Developers, which will give you a regular Mac application that you can put in the top-level Applications folder.
If you are using Windows, you may need to set up your Eclipse workspace to use the JDK as described in the Tools: Editing, Compiling, Running, and Testing Java Programs handout. However, don't tinker with the settings until you discover that they need to be changed. The default settings should be appropriate provided you only have Java 8 installed, and not other versions that Eclipse might wind up using instead.
attu is the name of an Instructional Workstation (IWS) Linux machine. You will occasionally need to log into this machine. How you log into attu depends on whether you are starting from a Linux machine or a Windows machine.
ssh YourCSENetID@attu.cs.washington.edu
Use the same password you use to login to the Linux machines in the Allen Center software labs.
Note for those who are new to the command line): When you try to type passwords in the command line, you may be alarmed that you can't see any text entered. To protect your password your typing simply isn't being shown. Just type your password as normal and press enter.
If you are using the Linux machines in an Allen Center software lab, you can alternatively use a shorter version of the command:
ssh attu
This works because the username defaults to the username you are currently logged in with and the target domain defaults to the domain of the machine you are connecting from.
In either case, your username is your CSENetID, and your password is the same one you use to login to the Linux machines in the Allen Center software labs.
The first time you connecting to attu from a given machine, you will receive a server authenticity warning like this:
The authenticity of host 'attu.cs.washington.edu (128.208.1.139)' can't be established.
Along with the warning, the SSH client will display the RSA key fingerprint of the remote host so that you can verify the host's identity. It is safe to say "yes" to continue connecting. When you connect, SSH will cache the host key in order to automatically verify the remote host's identity in the future.
If you only want to transfer files between your CSE account and your home machine, you can use scp ("secure copy"). For CSE 331, you should rarely, if ever, need to manually transfer files. All your code and other homework materials will be in a Subversion repository, allowing you to automatically and safely synchronize your work across machines. We provide information about scp as a reference for your general knowledge.
On a Mac or Linux machine, you can run scp at the command line. Run man
scp for documentation on this command. On Windows, scp is supported by PowerShell only.
If you prefer a graphical interface, you can install a file transfer program such as WinSCP. Most of the directions above for establishing a remote connection via ssh also apply to scp.