Skip to content

1. Software Requirement

If you encounter a problem, please look for a online solution. The installation and configuration described below is mostly performed using a bash shell on macOS. Windows users will need to install and configure a bash shell in order to follow the usage shown below. Try to use Windows Subsystem for Linux for this purpose.

macOS/Linux

Installing software for macOS/Linux

If you are new to using Bash refer to the following lessons with Software Carpentry: http://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/

  • If you don't have Homebrew, you can install it by pasting below code in your macOS/Linux terminal.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
  • Install wget (for downloading data). Use Hombrew to install it by pasting below code in your macOS terminal.
brew install wget

Windows

Enable the Windows Subsytem for Linux

Note

If you are using Windows machine, it's recomended to follow below step. You will experience an error during SPI calculation cause by NCO if you use standard Windows 10 and not using Windows Subsytem for Linux.

Guideline below are specific for Windows 10. If you are using Windows Server 2019, please follow Windows Server Installation Guide

Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

You must first enable the "Windows Subsystem for Linux - WSL" optional feature before installing any Linux distributions on Windows.

Open PowerShell as Administrator (right-click PowerShell) and run:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

Update to WSL 2

Check requirements for running WSL 2

To update to WSL 2, you must be running Windows 10.

  • For x64 systems: Version 1903 or higher, with Build 18362 or higher.
  • For ARM64 systems: Version 2004 or higher, with Build 19041 or higher.

Builds lower than 18362 do not support WSL 2. Use the Windows Update Assistant to update your version of Windows.

To check your version and build number, select Windows logo key + R, type winver, select OK. Update to the latest Windows version in the Settings menu.

Note

If you are running Windows 10 version 1903 or 1909, open "Settings" from your Windows menu, navigate to "Update & Security" and select "Check for Updates". Your Build number must be 18362.1049+ or 18363.1049+, with the minor build # over .1049. Read more: WSL 2 Support is coming to Windows 10 Versions 1903 and 1909. See the troubleshooting instructions.

Enable Virtual Machine feature

Before installing WSL 2, you must enable the Virtual Machine Platform optional feature. Your machine will require virtualization capabilities to use this feature.

Open PowerShell as Administrator (right-click PowerShell) and run:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

Restart your machine to complete the WSL install and update to WSL 2.

Download the Linux kernel update package

Download the latest package:

  • WSL2 Linux kernel update package for x64 machines

    Note

    If you're using an ARM64 machine, please download the ARM64 package instead. If you're not sure what kind of machine you have, open Command Prompt or PowerShell and enter: systeminfo | find "System Type". Caveat: On non-English Windows versions, you might have to modify the search text, for example, in German it would be systeminfo | find "Systemtyp".

  • Run the update package downloaded in the previous step. (Double-click to run - you will be prompted for elevated permissions, select ‘yes’ to approve this installation.)

Once the installation is complete, move on to the next step - setting WSL 2 as your default version when installing new Linux distributions. (Skip this step if you want your new Linux installs to be set to WSL 1).

Note

For more information, read the article changes to updating the WSL2 Linux kernel, available on the Windows Command Line Blog.

Set WSL 2 as your default version

Open PowerShell and run this command to set WSL 2 as the default version when installing a new Linux distribution:

wsl --set-default-version 2

Install your Linux distribution of choice

  • Open the Microsoft Store and select your favourite Linux distribution.

    Windows Store

    Let's focus to use Ubunto 20.04 LTS distro

  • From the distribution's page, select "Get"

    Ubuntu

The first time you launch a newly installed Linux distribution, a console window will open and you'll be asked to wait for a minute or two for files to de-compress and be stored on your PC. All future launches should take less than a second.

You will then need to create a user account and password for your new Linux distribution.

UbuntuInstall

CONGRATULATIONS! You've successfully installed and set up a Linux distribution that is completely integrated with your Windows operating system!

Install Windows Terminal (optional)

Windows Terminal enables multiple tabs (quickly switch between multiple Linux command lines, Windows Command Prompt, PowerShell, Azure CLI, etc), create custom key bindings (shortcut keys for opening or closing tabs, copy+paste, etc.), use the search feature, and custom themes (color schemes, font styles and sizes, background image/blur/transparency). Learn more.

Install Windows Terminal.

Terminal

Set your distribution version to WSL 1 or WSL 2

You can check the WSL version assigned to each of the Linux distributions you have installed by opening the PowerShell command line and entering the command (only available in Windows Build 18362 or higher): wsl -l -v

wsl --list --verbose
To set a distribution to be backed by either version of WSL please run:

wsl --set-version <distribution name> <versionNumber>

Make sure to replace <distribution name> with the actual name of your distribution and <versionNumber> with the number '1' or '2'. You can change back to WSL 1 at anytime by running the same command as above but replacing the '2' with a '1'.

Note

The update from WSL 1 to WSL 2 may take several minutes to complete depending on the size of your targeted distribution. If you are running an older (legacy) installation of WSL 1 from Windows 10 Anniversary Update or Creators Update, you may encounter an update error. Follow these instructions to uninstall and remove any legacy distributions.

If wsl --set-default-version results as an invalid command, enter wsl --help. If the --set-default-version is not listed, it means that your OS doesn't support it and you need to update to version 1903, Build 18362 or higher. If you are on Build 19041 for ARM64, this command may fail when using PowerShell in which case you can use a Command Prompt instead to issue the wsl.exe command.

If you see this message after running the command: WSL 2 requires an update to its kernel component. For information please visit https://aka.ms/wsl2kernel. You still need to install the MSI Linux kernel update package.

Additionally, if you want to make WSL 2 your default architecture you can do so with this command:

wsl --set-default-version 2

This will set the version of any new distribution installed to WSL 2.

Installing software for Windows

If you have a Bash shell already installed on your Windows OS (e.g. Ubuntu Bash) you can use that for the exercise, but it must be a Bash shell

If you are new to using Bash refer to the following lessons with Software Carpentry: http://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/

  • If you don't have Homebrew, you can install it by pasting below code in your WSL Ubuntu terminal.
bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
  • Install wget (for downloading data). Use Hombrew to install it by pasting below code in your WSL Ubuntu terminal.
brew install wget

Warning

climate-indices python package used for SPI calculation is rely on netCDF Operator (NCO) and pyNCO wrapper sometimes produce an error in Windows. That's the reason why we will use Anaconda for Linux if you are using Windows machine.

Reference: https://gist.github.com/kauffmanes/5e74916617f9993bc3479f401dfec7da

  • Go to https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/ to find the list of Anaconda releases
  • Select the release you want. I have a 64-bit computer, so I chose the latest release ending in x86_64.sh. If I had a 32-bit computer, I'd select the x86.sh version. If you accidentally try to install the wrong one, you'll get a warning in the terminal. I chose Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh.
  • From the terminal run wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/[YOUR VERSION]. Example: 
wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh

Anaconda Install

  • After download process completed, Run the installation script: bash Anaconda[YOUR VERSION].sh 
bash Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh
  • Read the license agreement and follow the prompts to press Return/Enter to accept. Later will follow with question on accept the license terms, type yes and Enter. When asks you if you'd like the installer to prepend it to the path, press Return/Enter to confirm the location. Last question will be about initialize Anaconda3, type yes then Enter.
  • Close the terminal and reopen it to reload .bash configs. It will automatically activate base environment.
  • Deactivate base environment then set to false the confirguration of auto activate the base environment by typing
conda deactivate && conda config --set auto_activate_base false

  • To test that it worked, which python in your Terminal. It should print a path that has anaconda in it. Mine is /home/bennyistanto/anaconda3/bin/python. If it doesn't have anaconda in the path, do the next step.

    Which Python

  • Manually add the Anaconda bin folder to your PATH. To do this, I added "export PATH=/home/bennyistanto/anaconda3/bin:$PATH" to the bottom of my ~/.bashrc file.

  • Optionally install Visual Studio Code when prompted

    Info

    Or you can use Miniconda: Ubuntu Linux on WSL.