To install the M269 software, you need about 1 Gb of disk space and a modern operating system: Linux, macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later, Windows 10 or 11. Note: In these instructions, Unix refers to Linux or macOS.

You can have your M269 book and TMAs in a cloud folder, but you must install Python 3.11 and the M269 software on each computer you use.

Important: You must open and close PowerShells and terminals as instructed below for the software to be correctly installed and used. Do not use already opened PowerShells and terminals.

These instructions assume that you already have created your M269 folder and have put the M269 book there, as instructed in the Resources tab of the M269 website.

If you need help with the following instructions, ask in the M269 Technical Forum.

1 Preparation

Before installing the M269 software, do the following:

  1. Check if you have Python 3.11:
    • Windows: open a PowerShell, enter py -0 and see if 3.11 is listed
    • Unix: open a terminal and enter python3.11 -V

    If 3.11 isn’t listed or you get an error message like command not found, then go to the next step, otherwise go directly to step 4 (macOS) or 5 (Windows and Linux).

  2. Install Python 3.11, even if you have a newer version. Do not uninstall any Python version you have.
    • Windows: Follow these instructions to check if you have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows. Then download and run the 32-bit installer or the 64-bit installer. After installing, disable the pathname limit if you’re given that option.
    • macOS: download and run the installer
    • Linux: enter sudo apt install python3.11 or similar (search online for instructions for your Linux distribution). If you’re using a Debian-based distribution like Ubuntu, you must additionally enter sudo apt install python3.11-venv or similar.

  3. macOS: open a terminal, enter xcode-select --install and follow the instructions. If you get a message that the command line tools are already installed, then this step is completed.

  4. Close any PowerShell (Windows) or terminal (Unix) you have opened, and proceed to the next section.

2 Installation

To avoid errors, we suggest that instead of typing the commands, you select and copy them from this page and paste them into the command line.

  1. Open a new PowerShell (Windows) or a new terminal (Unix).

  2. Go to your M269 folder by entering cd <M269 folder path>, e.g. cd ~/OU/m269-24j. (In PowerShell and Unix, ~ is a shorthand for your home folder.)

  3. Download the installation script:
    • Windows: Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dsa-ou/m269-installer/main/install.ps1 -OutFile install.ps1
    • Unix: curl -LO https://github.com/dsa-ou/m269-installer/raw/main/install.sh
  4. Allow the installation script to run:
    • Windows: Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser and then select the Y (yes) option if you’re given a choice
    • Unix: chmod +x install.sh
  5. Run the installation script:
    • Windows: .\install.ps1
    • Unix: ./install.sh and ignore a message about pytype and networkx being incompatible
  6. Close the PowerShell or terminal you opened in step 1.

You will have the following files in your M269 folder:

We recommend you do not remove these files, so that you can re-install the software, if needed. Now proceed to the next section.

3 Usage

On Windows, there are two ways of using the M269 notebooks, either from a terminal or by double clicking a desktop shortcut. On Unix, use a terminal.

3.1 Desktop shortcut (Windows only)

The installation process creates a shortcut on your desktop named M269-start. If you double click this shortcut, a PowerShell window opens where Jupyter writes its log messages, then your browser opens the Jupyter dashboard, listing the contents of your M269 folder. If there’s a message about migrating to Notebook 7, click “don’t show anymore”. You can now continue reading Section 1.3 of the book to learn how to use Jupyter.

Note for tutors: You can create additional shortcuts, each opening Jupyter in a different start folder, e.g. the eTMA marking folder, by following these instructions:

  1. Right click on the desktop. Select ‘new shortcut’. Type powershell. Hit ‘Next’ and then ‘Finish’: ‘powershell’ gets automatically expanded to the full name of the program.

  2. Right click on the new desktop icon and select ‘Properties’ to update the shortcut:

    1. Modify the start-up folder to be your M269 folder.
    2. Append -file start.ps1 path/to/folder to the target field (if the path includes spaces, you must enclose it in quotes). It should now read: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -file start.ps1 path/to/folder.
    3. Optionally you can update the icon for the shortcut. To get a Jupyter icon instead of a PowerShell icon you can use %USERPROFILE%\venvs\m269-24j\Lib\site-packages\nbclassic\static\base\images\favicon.ico.

We thank M269 tutor Bob Moore for creating the original version of start.ps1 and of these shortcut instructions.

3.2 Terminal (Windows and Unix)

Every time you want to work on the M269 notebooks, you need to follow the next 5 steps. However, the first time you are using Jupyter, after installing the software, just do the first 3 steps and return to the book to learn how to use Jupyter.

  1. Open a new PowerShell (Windows) or a new terminal (Unix).

  2. Enter m269-24j to go to your M269 folder and activate the M269 software. The command line prompt becomes (m269-24j) ... to remind you that you’re using the M269 software and not your default Python installation.

    Important: Never install software while the M269 software is active, as that may change the M269 software installation and break it.

  3. Enter nb to start working with notebooks. After a little while, a web browser opens, with the Jupyter dashboard listing the contents of your M269 folder. If there’s a message about migrating to Notebook 7, click “don’t show anymore”. (You can now continue reading Section 1.3 of the book.)

    Note: if you skipped step 2 by mistake, then entering nb will still activate the M269 software but Jupyter will start in your current folder rather than the M269 folder, and you won’t see the M269 materials in the Jupyter dashboard. In that case, do step 4 to close the dashboard and then go back to step 2.

  4. After finishing working on the notebooks, go back to the web browser tab with the Jupyter dashboard, click on the ‘Quit’ button, then close the browser tab.

  5. Close the PowerShell or terminal you opened in step 1.

Note to tutors: To mark TMA notebooks, follow the steps above, but in step 2, instead of entering m269-24j, change to the eTMA marking folder with the cd command, and then proceed with step 3 to start working in that folder.

Note for macOS users: If steps 2 and 3 (the m269-24j and nb commands) are not working, and you are using bash, enter in the terminal

 echo 'if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then source ~/.bashrc; fi' >> ~/.bash_profile

Then close your terminal, open a new one, and try again steps 2 and 3.

4 Uninstalling

At the end of the M269 24J presentation, if you wish to remove the M269 software, delete folder ~/venvs/m269-24j and any desktop shortcuts you created on Windows. If you also want to remove the m269-24j and nb commands:

  1. Find out in which file they are defined.
    • Windows: open a PowerShell and enter $Profile.CurrentUserCurrentHost to obtain the file name
    • Unix: open a terminal and enter echo $0 to obtain the shell you’re using. If it’s fish, then the commands are in file ~/.config/fish/config.fish, otherwise they’re in file ~/.shellrc, where shell is the name of your shell. For example, if you’re using bash, then it’s file ~/.bashrc.

  2. Open the file in a text editor.

  3. Search for the lines that define the m269-24j and nb functions (Windows) or aliases (Unix). Delete those lines.

  4. Save the file and close the text editor.

If you want to remove the M269 styling of notebooks:

  1. Open file ~/.jupyter/custom/custom.css in a text editor.

  2. Delete all lines from /* Start of M269-24J ... */ to /* End of M269-24J ... */.

  3. Save the file and close the editor.

5 Re-installing

If you haven’t removed the installation files from your M269 folder, you can re-install the software after uninstalling it, e.g. to work again on your M269 notebooks. Do as follows:

  1. Open a new PowerShell (Windows) or a new terminal (Unix).

  2. Go to your M269 folder by entering cd <M269 folder path>, e.g. cd ~/OU/m269-24j.

  3. Run the installation script with an extra space and period after the command, compared to step 5 in Section 2:
    • Windows: .\install.ps1 .
    • Unix: ./install.sh .
  4. Close the PowerShell or terminal you opened in step 1.

Licence

The code and text in this repository are Copyright © 2023–2024 by The Open University, UK. The code is licensed under a BSD-3-clause licence. The text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

The installation scripts were written with the help of GitHub Copilot.