Setting up virtualenv Getting virtualenv to work

25 August 2017

This tutorial describes how to setup virtualenv on ecelinux. If your are installing it in another environment, skip up to Creating virtualenv step.

ECE Linux Machines

There are 8 linux machines available: ecelinux[1-8].uwaterloo.ca. The instructions have been tested on the newer machines ecelinux[1-3].uwaterloo.ca. Please use those machines only. When working remotely, first login to ecelinux4.uwaterloo.ca and then to one of the machines above. For example

$ ssh user@ecelinux4.uwaterloo.ca
$ ssh user@ecelinux1.uwaterloo.ca

Switching shell to bash

Check your current shell

$ echo $SHELL
/bin/csh

If the current shell is /bin/csh, switch it to bash using the web interface here. See the bottom of the page under the heading Unix Shell Change.

# replace USER with your watiam id
$ ssh USER@ecelinux.uwaterloo.ca
$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash

If changing your shell through the above instructions does not work (or if you prefer csh in general), you can temporarily switch to bash as follows:

$ bash -l

Create virtualenv space for the course

Detailed instructions are available at http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/virtualenvs

$ mkdir ece650
$ cd ece650
$ virtualenv venv

Activate virtualenv (this needs to be done at every login to use the environment)

$ source ./venv/bin/activate
(venv) [user@ecelinux ece650]$

Install required packages

You might find it convenient to use the coverage package to evaluate the quality of your testing.

$ source ./venv/bin/activate
$ pip install coverage

To de-active the environment

(venv) [user@ecelinux ece650]$ deactivate

To activate and deactivate virtualenv during each login session

$ source ./venv/bin/activate
(venv) $ coverage --help
(venv) $ deactivate
$

After virtualenv is activated you should be able to use python, coverage, ipython, and other python commands as usual.