Installing Julia & Pluto

I - Installing Julia

Note

When you see below add Pluto , it means that you should type “add Pluto” followed by pressing “Enter” on our keyboard. And when you see it means that you need to press the key and the key , keeping the first pressed.

The installation instructions for Julia vary depending on your Operating System (OS). Please choose your OS tab in the following box to see the appropriate instructions.

  1. To make sure that you download the correct executable for the Windows OS, you can download it from Windows installer Julia v1.11.3
  2. Check your Downloads folder and double-click the file you have just downloaded to run it
  3. Allow the installation to be done in the default directory
  4. Click on:
    If for whatever reason you missed the previous step, please restart the installation process.
  5. Click on:

🎉 Well done! By now, Julia should be correctly installed on your PC.
To run it, search for the icon .

  1. Be careful to choose the correct Apple executable
    according to the processor (Intel/Rosetta or Apple Silicon) you have on your Mac: this means that you have to choose (2) or (3) below.
  2. If your Mac has an Intel or Rosetta processor, you can download the correct executable from macOS x86 (Intel or Rosetta) Julia v1.11.3
  3. If your Mac has an Apple Silicon processor, you can download the correct executable from macOS (Apple Silicon) Julia v1.11.3
  4. Check your Downloads folder and drag it to the Applications folder

🎉 Well done! By now, Julia should be correctly installed on your PC.
To run it, search for the icon in Applications.

  1. Download the executable: 64-bit (.glibc) (for distributions like Ubuntu or Mint) from Generic Linux on x86 Julia v1.11.3
  2. Enter the compressed folder and extract the folder julia-1.11.3 to your Home directory.
  3. Inside the folder julia-1.11.3 there should be another folder named bin. Get the path to that folder by clicking with the right button of your mouse and choosing Properties
  4. Return to your Home directory and search for a file called .profile
    The file .profile is a hidden file. If you don’t see it, turn the hidden files visible.
  5. At the end of the file .profile add PATH="/home/<user>/<julia-1.11.3>/bin:$PATH"
    Notice that the part /home/<user>/<julia-1.11.3>/bin should be exactly what you copied from the properties of the bin folder some steps before.
  6. Please restart your PC right now.

🎉 Well done! By now, Julia should be correctly installed on your PC.
To run it, open a terminal and run: julia
To open a Terminal search for the icon .

II - Installing Pluto

Next we will install Pluto. Remember Pluto is a Julia Package. This means that we install it and run it from inside Julia.

  1. Run Julia the way you were told at the end of the installation instructions above (it varies according to te OS you have). You should bee seeing a window like this:

    By now, you should be comfortable with the fact that Julia has a weird old-school interface. That’s why we use a fancy IDE like Pluto!

  2. With Julia running, type the character ], usually by using the keyboard combination or in Windows and Linux, and on a Mac. The previous window should become like this:

  3. Then type: add Pluto

  4. When the Pluto installation is completed, press to leave the pkg> mode and go back to the julia> mode.

🎉 Well done! By now, Pluto should be correctly installed on your PC. To start Pluto, in the Julia window run:
import Pluto; Pluto.run()
Notice the space between import and Pluto, the dot between Pluto and run(), and the semicolon ; separating both expressions. All these details are critical!

Pluto will run in a window of your default Browser (we recommend Google Chrome or Firefox).

III - Updating Pluto

The team that created Pluto updates this package regularly. So, it is advisable to update Pluto occasionally to get the newest version on your computer. As Pluto is a Julia package, this means that we will have to update it from inside Julia.

  1. Run Julia the way you were told at the end of the installation instructions above (it varies according to the OS you have). You should bee seeing a window like this (julia> mode):

  2. With Julia running, type the character ] . In Windows (and Linux) this character is achieved using the keyboard combination or ; in Mac by using . The previous window should become like this (pkg> mode):

  3. Then type: up

  4. When the Pluto update is completed, press to leave the pkg> mode and go back to julia> mode.

🎉 Well done! By now, you have the latest version of Pluto installed on your PC. To start using Pluto see the following section.