unitinfo This page provides helpful information about many coursework units offered by Computer Science and Software Engineering in 2024. The information here is not official - for official information please see the current UWA Handbook. Instead, it will help students to prepare for their future units, before the beginning of each semester, and before they have access to UWA's Learning Management System (LMS).

Installing Linux on your Windows or macOS computer

There are several ways to install Linux on your laptop or desktop computer, each slightly different depending on your computer hardware, and how you wish to organize your software.

The purpose of this page is to point you to software that enables you to run Linux on top of your existing Windows or macOS operating systems. This means that you won't have to repartion your disk to install Linux, and have far less chance of accidently deleting your existing Windows or macOS systems. Moreover, while running Linux on your computer, you can still access your Windows and macOS files.

In CSSE we recommend installing the very popular and well-supported Ubuntu Linux Desktop distribution. Ubuntu releases a new distribution every six months, either a stable LTS (long-term support) release, or a (possibly) less-stable experimental/develop release. The current stable release is Ubuntu LTS-22.04 (released April 2022) and is the one recommended for all CSSE units. While later releases (such as 22.10) are available, and include more recent software packages, none will be required for your CSSE units - so choose the stable release when prompted or searching.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) on Windows

In 2020 Microsoft launched the Windows Subsystem Linux - a way to run actual Linux inside Windows without the need to set up a virtual machine.
This is by far the preferred option to run standard Linux on Windows.

• Instructions to enable, download, and setup WSL: How to install Linux WSL2 on Windows 10 and Windows 11
  Choose the Ubuntu LTS-22.04 release.

Docker Desktop on Windows

An alternative to installing WSL2 is Docker Desktop for Windows. It is preferred for the cases when you wish to run operating systems other than Linux on your Windows computer, or frequently switch between different patched operating systems, as required in some CSSE Cybersecurity units.

Docker Desktop for Windows is Docker designed to run on Windows. It is a native Windows application that provides an easy-to-use development environment for building, shipping, and running dockerized apps. Docker Desktop for Windows uses Windows-native Hyper-V virtualization and networking. Docker Desktop for Windows supports running both Linux and Windows Docker containers.

• read Detailed installation instructions
• skim Getting started

Docker Desktop on macOS

At present, the easist way to run Linux (and even Windows) on top of macOS is with Docker Desktop for Mac.

Docker Desktop for Mac is an easy-to-install desktop app for building, debugging, and testing Dockerized apps on a Mac. Docker Desktop for Mac is a complete development environment deeply integrated with the Mac OS Hypervisor framework, networking, and filesystem.

Download for either a Mac with an Intel Processor, or one with Apple's new M1 processor.

• read Detailed installation instructions
• skim Getting started