Overview

Overview#

Here you’ll set up the tools you’ll use for the rest of the course: the cloud-based JupyterHub where you’ll do most of your work, the Unix shell for navigating files and running commands, and Git/GitHub for version control and assignment submission.

Learning objectives#

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  1. Use the course’s working environment — JupyterLab on the LEAP hub (primary) or Google Colab as a fallback — to create and edit notebooks.

  2. Navigate the file system using shell commands — pwd, ls, cd, and paths (relative, absolute, ~, ., ..).

  3. Create, modify, and remove files and directories using mkdir, touch, mv, cp, and rm — and understand why “deleted is forever” on the shell.

  4. Explain why version control exists and what problem it solves.

  5. Track changes with git — init, add, commit, and inspect history with status and log.

  6. Push code to GitHub from your environment.

  7. Set up your assignments repository and submit work using the course’s week-folder pattern.

Use this list to check your understanding before moving on. If any item feels uncertain, the page that covers it is linked below.

Pages in this section#

  • JupyterLab and Colab — environments for running Python in your browser

  • Intro to Unix — navigating the file system and basic file operations

  • Intro to Git — version control, GitHub workflow, and authentication for both environments

  • Assignment 1 — set up your assignments repository and submit your first week-folder