ENGR 101 | University of Michigan

Installation Guide for ENGR 101

Overview

This document is intended to serve as a guide to setting up your computer for ENGR 101. In this course, you will learn to solve engineering problems through computing. You will use two computer programming languages in this course: MATLAB and C++. We assume that our students have no previous programming experience and teach computing starting with the very basics. Whether you have some programming background or have never coded in your life, this class is for you! (If you’ve programmed before, don’t worry: there will be some challenging exercises for you as well!) The following are instructions for setting these up across multiple operating systems as well as the process for installing and using VSCode.

The terminal provides an alternate interface for working with your computer. Essentially, you work by typing commands rather than by clicking icons or working with visual interfaces. Some alternate names for the terminal you may see are “shell”, “console”, and “command prompt”. Using the terminal will feel weird at first, and sometimes can be disorienting. It’s hard to remember all the commands. You don’t always get as much feedback as with a visual interface. But it feels more natural over time, and it will be a powerful addition to your toolset, in particular for programming and other computing tasks. This tutorial will get you started on the right path.

MATLAB in ENGR 101

For the first half of the semester, you will be using a software package called MATLAB. This program is sold by MathWorks and is available to the general public for purchase. BUT, the University of Michigan has negotiated a deal with Mathworks that provides registered students with a FREE COPY of MATLAB – Go Blue!

Installing MATLAB

MATLAB is a cross-platform program, meaning that there are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You download an installer program which then handles installing MATLAB on your computer.

To install MATLAB on your personal computer, follow the instructions provided on this webpage:

https://www.mathworks.com/academia/tah-portal/university-of-michigan-820543.html

Below is a walk-through for installing MATLAB on your computer.

Note: This walkthrough is for a somewhat older version of MATLAB (R2020a). If you have a different version and it has a valid license, you should be fine for ENGR 101 purposes.

Scroll down until you see this box, then click on the blue button:

After you click this button, you will be redirected to a U-M weblogin screen. However, if your web browser already knows you are logged in with your umich account (because you logged in to check the course Google drive or to download this .pdf), then the browser will automatically log you in and it will seem like this step is skipped – that’s okay.

Next, you need to confirm/create a MathWorks account (There is an option to create an account on the sign-in page):

Follow the prompts to download the current version of MATLAB for your computer (Windows, MacOS, Linux).

Once the installer has downloaded, find and launch it (by clicking or double-clicking). Follow the steps in the installer. Here is some info to help you through the installation process:

• Login with your MathWorks account
• Accept the Terms of Service if you want to use MATLAB
• Select a license. If there is more than one choice, choose the one that says either “Student TAH (SSO)” or something like “Academic - Total Headcount”
• Choose the default destination folder unless you have a good reason not to
• Eventually, you will reach the Product Selection part of the installation process:

Downloading MATLAB will probably take awhile, so go make a cup of tea, make a post on Piazza, or check in with another class while you wait. You’ll probably have time to do all three!

C++ in ENGR 101

In the second half of the semester, we will switch to programming in C++. C++ is a compiled programming language, which means that we need to install a few tools so that we can create C++ programs. We’ll also be using the terminal a lot more in the C++ half of the semester.

The terminal provides an alternate interface for working with your computer. Essentially, you work by typing commands rather than by clicking icons or working with visual interfaces. Some alternate names that you may see for the terminal interface are shell, console, and command prompt.

Using the terminal will feel weird at first, and sometimes can be disorienting. It’s hard to remember all the commands. You don’t always get as much feedback as with a visual interface. But it feels more natural over time, and it will be a powerful addition to your toolset, in particular for programming and other computing tasks. The instructions here will help you get started with using the terminal on your computer.

The installation and setup process for the C++ tools that we need looks a little different for Mac Users vs. Windows Users vs. Linux Users. Use the instructions and tutorials that apply to you.

For MacOS Users

The Mac operating system is built on top of a Linux-style operating system. This means that you’ll just need to install a couple of things and then you’ll be all set!

System Setup

We will be using the g++ program to compile and run our C++ programs. The g++ program is included in Apple’s Xcode Command Line Tools. Here is a description of the Command Line Tools. We’ll be following this installation guide as well, because it’s really quite good and why should we make our own when this already exists?

Follow these instructions to check that you have the Xcode Command Line Tools installed, or to install them if you don’t:

1. Open a Terminal
   • A terminal interface is already included with macOS. Use spotlight (press command+space) and search for “terminal”.
2. Follow these instructions to see if you already have the Command Line Tools installed.
3. If you do not have the Command Line Tools installed, follow these instructions to install the Command Line Tools.
   • Note: You don’t have to install the “Warp Terminal” that the author says they like better. The built-in MacOS terminal is just fine.
   • The linked instructions should work for everyone, but if you have trouble with installing just the Command Line Tools, you may have to install the full Xcode app (instructions for that here). We don’t know why, but sometimes this helps. Please come talk to us in office hours if you’re stuck!
   • If you are using macOS Mojave 10.14, please see the error specific to macOS Mojave 10.14 section for instructions that may be helpful if you run into a specific error related to this OS version.
4. The g++ program is included in the Xcode Command Line Tools, so check that g++ installed correctly.
   • Type g++ in the terminal, like this:

       % g++
     

   • If g++ installed correctly, you will see this error:

       % g++
       clang: error: no input files
       %
     

     The error means that g++ is ready to compile your C++ files, but we didn’t tell it which files to use. So, this error means that g++ installed correctly and is ready for you to use!

   • If g++ did not install correctly, you will see something like this error:

       % g++
       zsh: command not found: g++
       %
     

     In this case, please revisit the installation instructions linked above because it’s likely you accidentally missed a step. If you are stuck for more than 15 minutes or so, then please come into office hours so we can help you!

Opening a Terminal

In general (as you did above), use spotlight (press Command+Space) and search for “terminal”. Once the terminal is open, you can use the cd command to navigate to the folder you want to work with using basic terminal commands.

Using the Terminal

We’ve put together a set of tutorial videos:

• Terminal Basics, Part 1

• Terminal Basics, Part 2

• Compiling Programs with g++

Please watch these videos and follow along on your computer to start becoming familiar with how the terminal works.

Error Specific to macOS Mojave 10.14

If your computer is running macOS Mojave 10.14, you may see the error:

Xcode Tools Install Error (Software Update Server Error)

This error occurs for all users that have updated the OS on their macs to macOS Mojave 10.14. Click the apple icon on the top left of your screen and then About This Mac. You should see a version number under the OS name.

• Sign in to your Apple account: https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=for%20Xcode
• Once you’ve signed in, your screen should look similar to the image below. Search for “Command Line Tools (macOS 10.14) for Xcode 10”. Click the + button to the left of the description and download the .dmg file.

• Once the .dmg file has finished downloading, open the downloads folder in Finder. Double click on the .dmg file. You should see the following window appear.

• Double click on the .pkg icon and follow the instructions on the prompts (accept / agree / install). The command line tools will take up approximately 1 GB of space on your disk.

• Once the install has finished, type g++ --version at the terminal. You should see a message with a version number. Continue to Step 3 in the main setup instructions.

For Windows Users

This version of the tutorial assumes you are working on a personal computer running Windows 10 or 11.

Unfortunately, ENGR 101 does not provide support for setting up a development environment on older versions of windows, because WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is not available on these systems. Alternatively, other tools exist for C++ development on older versions of Windows, such as Cygwin or MinGW, but again, ENGR 101 does not provide support for these environments.

System Setup

Though Windows has its own terminal interface, it is not compatible with many of the tools we’ll need in ENGR 101. Instead we’ll install Ubuntu (a distribution of the Linux operating system) on top of Windows and use the Linux terminal for C++ development in ENGR 101. Steps 1 through 3 are also shown at the following link with some pictures for reference. The pictures here will be more up-to-date, and are recommended for ease of installation. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/wsl-tutorial

Step 1: Check Compatibility

• If you have Windows 11, skip this step.
• Find and select “System Information” from the search bar.
• Verify that the “OS Name” contains Windows 10.
• Verify that the “Version” contains a build number that is 16215 or higher. (If your build number is too low, install the most recent windows updates and try again.)

Step 2: Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

• Find and select “Turn Windows features on or off” from the search bar.
• Find and check the boxes “Windows Subsystem for Linux”, “Windows Hypervisor Platform”, and “Virtual Machine Platform”. Click ok.
• Your computer may prompt you for administrator privileges. Allow this.
• You may be required to restart to finish the installation. Go ahead and do this now.
• Check that WSL is installed by typing in “wsl” into your Command Prompt (this is a separate program accessible via the search bar)

Step 3: Install Ubuntu on WSL

• Find and select “Microsoft Store” from the search bar. Search for “Ubuntu”. Select it and then click the “Get” button. This may take a moment.
• You may also see options for “Ubuntu 18.04 LTS” and “Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.” Disregard these. Simply install “Ubuntu.”
• Once the download and install is finished, click “Launch”. This may take another moment.
• A terminal window will open. You’ll be prompted for a username. Type one and hit enter.
• You’ll be prompted for a password. Type one and hit enter. Repeat to confirm the password. (Note that when you type the password, the characters aren’t shown. This is an intentional security feature and does not mean that your terminal is “broken”)
  • NOTE: This is the administrator password for the Linux terminal, so be sure to remember this password.*

Step 4: Install Packages with apt

• apt is a package manager that we use to install and update programs. You can think of it kind of like an “app store”, but for the terminal.
• First, update apt itself by typing the following command at the terminal:

    sudo apt update
  

• You’ll be prompted for your password. This is because of the sudo, which runs a command with administrator privileges. Enter the password you chose earlier.
• The update may take a bit to run. You’ll see lots of output at the terminal.
• After that, run the following command at the terminal:

    sudo apt upgrade
  

• This command will upgrade all of the existing packages to the latest versions. This may take a few minutes.
• Now, use apt to install several useful packages with the following command:

    sudo apt install g++ make wget git ssh gdb valgrind tree python3
  

  (This installs the necessary development packages for C++. This will take a while.)

• Once the install has finished, type g++ --version at the terminal. You should see a message with a version number if the install was successful.

Opening a Terminal

To open a terminal for working in a particular folder, navigate to that folder in the file explorer. Then, click in the white space where the directory is listed and type bash (completely replacing whatever is there initially). This will open a terminal with that folder set as the current directory. Here is an example:

Using the Terminal

We’ve put together a set of tutorial videos:

• Terminal Basics, Part 1

• Terminal Basics, Part 2

• Compiling Programs with g++

Please watch these videos and follow along on your computer to start becoming familiar with how the terminal works.

FAQ/Troubleshooting

If you run into a problem when running sudo apt update, specifically an error stating something along the lines of Temporary failure resolving <url>, it is likely the case that your computer’s firewall is blocking the Ubuntu packages from being received by your computer.

Potential Solutions:

• Preferred Solution: Whitelist Ubuntu on your firewall by creating a program rule to always allow internet traffic to and from Ubuntu.
• Less Preferred Solution: Temporarily pause your firewall until the installation is done to get around this.

If you run into an issue with getting Ubuntu/WSL to respond to any commands (i.e., you run the command wsl --shutdown and the command never finishes running), check the Task Manager to see how much of your CPU is being used. If WSL is using your entire CPU to run, you need to set a maximum limit for how much space WSL is allowed to use on your computer.

Why does this happen? Sometimes, WSL gets stuck in an infinite loop—normally, this can just be fixed by stopping WSL and restarting it, but if WSL is using your entire computer, then there’s no space left to execute the restart command.

To fix this problem, we will create what’s called a config file. First, navigate to your user profile directory. This should be something like C:\Users\<UserName>. Then, in that directory, create a file and name it .wslconfig (important: it must be exactly this name, including the period before the name begins and with no additional suffixes like .txt). The file should contain only the following two lines:

[wsl2]
memory=3GB

After adding these two lines, save your WSL config file. Then, restart your computer. When your computer restarts, the new WSL settings will automatically be applied and it should prevent the issue from recurring.

For Linux Users

If you use Linux, we’re guessing that you are already pretty familiar with the terminal and that you probably already have the g++ compiler installed. If you have any questions about your setup, please come to office hours.

Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a tool that provides an editor and a complementary set of features that make your life easier when writing code. Think of it like a word processor, but for writing programs. For example, just as a word processor might provide a spellchecker, an IDE can underline compilation errors in your code as you’re writing it.

For writing C++ programs in ENGR 101, we recommend Visual Studio Code (VS Code). Although you are welcome to try other IDEs if you like, we only officially support VS Code (e.g. in office hours). Some common alternatives are Visual Studio for Windows (yes, this is different from Visual Studio Code) and Xcode for macOS.

Installing VS Code

Follow the instructions below for your operating system. (And skip the ones that don’t apply.)

Windows

Step 1: Install

Follow the VS Code installation instructions for Windows. When you run the installer, make sure the following options are checked:

Step 2: Install the WSL Extension

1. Open VS Code.
2. Click the extensions button on the left side.
3. Search for “remote wsl” and select the WSL extension.

1. Click “Install”. This may take a couple of minutes.
2. You may also need to click “Reload to Activate”.

Check out the article Remote Development in WSL from Microsoft to get some more information on how to interface with WSL in VS Code. You won’t need all of the sections, but this will walk you through some quick steps on how to create a remote connection to your Linux subsystem.

Step 3: Configure Your Environment

1. Press CTRL+shift+p to open the command palette.
2. Search for and select the “Open User Settings (JSON)” command.
   • If there is a > prompt inside a window at the top of the command palette, type in the command: preferences and it should bring up Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON) as an option to click on
3. VS Code should open a .json file. In this file, copy/paste the following:

    {
    "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wsl.exe", 
    "C_Cpp.clang_format_fallbackStyle": "Google",
    "C_Cpp.default.intelliSenseMode": "gcc-x64",
    "C_Cpp.default.compilerPath": "/usr/bin/gcc",
    "C_Cpp.default.includePath": [
        "${workspaceFolder}/**"
    ],
    "C_Cpp.default.cppStandard": "c++11"
    }
   

4. Press CTRL+shift+s to save the settings (replace the file if need be, that’s fine). You may now close the settings .json file.

Step 4: Verifying Settings

Once you have gone through steps 1 to 3, you should be all set to develop code in Windows! However, if you are not using the proper setting, you will have issues getting code to run.

1. Verify that you are properly using Remote - WSL. On the bottom of your VS Code window, you should see something like this on the bottom left corner:
   
2. If you see something like this:
   

   Click on the green status button, and select “Connect to WSL” in the dropdown menu that appears.

   
3. In the new window that opens, open up a new Terminal by pressing CTRL+shift+` , or by going to “Terminal” -> “New Terminal.” Ensure that the terminal that opens is a Bash terminal by verifying the following on the top right of the Terminal that just opened:
   
4. If you do not see “Bash,” and see something else (such as “PowerShell” for example) click on the down arrow next to the + symbol and select “Bash” on the menu that appears. Your menu options may be different.
   
5. Pro Tip: To ensure that a bash terminal opens every time, click on the down arrow next to the + and click on “Select Default Profile” on the menu that appears. Select “Bash” in the subsequent dropdown menu. Your options may be different, but you will have a bash option. Select this.
   

MacOS

Follow the VS Code installation instructions for Mac. You only need to perform the basic installation.

CAEN Linux

VS Code should already be present on CAEN Linux. Find it in the Applications > Programming menu.

Linux (on a personal computer)

Follow the VS Code installation instructions for Linux.

Installing the C/C++ Extension

1. Open VS Code if it is not already open.
2. Click the extensions button on the left side.
3. Search for “c++” and select the C/C++ extension
4. Click “Install”. This may take a couple of minutes. When finished, you will see a “Thank you for installing the C/C++ extension” message.
5. You may also need to click “Reload to Activate”.

Using VS Code - Basics

You will get a lot of practice working with VS code as you write programs for ENGR 101. This guide demonstrates the general workflow that we’ll be using in class.

Opening a Folder to Work In

We recommend that you create new and separate folders for each project/lab in ENGR 101 on your computer. For example, use your computer to create a folder named test00. To work on a project/lab in VS Code, you’ll first need to select that folder. Do this from the File > Open Folder menu by searching for that folder and then hit the Select Folder button.

Editing Source Files

Along the left side, you’ll find the Explorer, which shows you all files in your current folder. Of course, you may not have any yet. If you hover your mouse over the Explorer, you’ll find a button to create a new file (go ahead and try it, creating a new file named hello.cpp). When you create files in your folder, they will all appear here. Double click the hello.cpp file in the Explorer, and VS Code will open the file in an editor window. Type the following C++ code in the hello.cpp file:

#include <iostream>
    using namespace std;

    int main(){
    cout << "Hello World" << endl;
    }

Save the file either using the File > Save menu or a keyboard shortcut like ctrl+S on Windows/Linux or ⌘+S on macOS. Note that files with unsaved changes show a circle following the file name in the code editor. This will disappear once you save the file.

Opening a Terminal in VS Code

You can open a terminal directly inside VS Code! Use the Terminal menu button in the top row and select “New Terminal”. This is the VS Code terminal and it works exactly the same as any other terminal. (If you’re on Windows, note that “step 2: configure settings” from the setup instructions is required for the terminal to work correctly!)

Once your terminal appears VS Code window, type:

g++ hello.cpp -o hello

This will compile your code, and if free of errors, create the file hello. To run your code, type:

./hello

In your terminal window, you will be rewarded with the output:

Hello World

Congratulations, you have successfully written, compiled, and run a C++ program with VS Code.

You can use the VS Code terminal for more than just compiling code. All the regular commands will work. Try these out:

cp hello.cpp File_01.cpp
cp hello.cpp helloV2.cpp

You should see the extra files show up in the VS Code Explorer. You can have several files open in your editor at one time. Try opening your new files. There are two ways to open files in VS Code:

• Single click to open the file in the current editor. Clicking another file will replace it.
• Double click to open the file in its own editor, which will stay open until you close it.

Using VS Code - Tips and Tricks

As you get more familiar with VS Code, you might want to try out some advanced features that can make it easier to write your programs. Here are some things that we find particularly helpful!

C++ Compilation Support

VS Code will show many compiler errors/warnings inline as you type your code. This is invaluable when working on a large coding project, and it helps you fix compile errors as you work, rather than saving up dozens of them for once you finally get around to running g++.

Auto-Format

Has your formatting/indentation gotten a bit disorganized? Right click and select Format Document or just press Alt-Shift-F to have VS Code automatically format your code. There are options for configuring the formatter to fit your individual style. (Also note that the formatter may have a hard time doing this if you have syntax errors in your code.)

Change All Occurrences

Regretting a poor choice of variable name, but not looking forward to retyping it everywhere? Just right click the variable in your code and select Change All Occurrences. VS Code will highlight all uses of that variable, so that when you type a new name, they will all get updated!

Multiple Cursors

Want to type in multiple places at once to impress all your friends? Hold down the “Alt” key while clicking your cursor somewhere to add an extra cursor rather than moving the current one. Now when you type, you insert characters at every cursor!

Jump to Definition

Can’t remember where you declared a variable? Want to see the code for a function? Just Ctrl-Click on a variable or function name and VS Code will jump to the part of your code where it’s defined.

Enable Auto Save

Nothing changed after you compiled your code? You probably forgot to save your file. To avoid having to save your filter after every change, enable Auto Save! Just click on “File” -> “Auto Save,” and every change that you make in all of your files will be automatically saved. You’ll know if Auto Save is active if there’s a check mark next to it in the File menu.

Live Share (Online, Collaborative Functionality)

Live Share is a VS Code extension that allow multiple people to edit the same code file at the same time (similar to how you can do that in google doc)

Installation

Similar to how you installed the C/C++ extension, search the Live Share extension and click the green install button.

Using Live Share

Once you have installed the extension, you will see a Live Share button on the left side. Once you click on the button, you will have the option to join or start a collaboration session. Here is more information about Live Share.

Before you can use the feature, you need to log in using a Microsoft or Github account. VS code will prompt you to log in once you click the share now button. If you plan on taking other computer science courses at Michigan, we recommend that you create a GitHub account.

Once you click one of these buttons, you will be directed to Microsoft or GitHub Login page. Follow the instructions on the web page to sign in, and you will be able to collaborate with your teammates once it is complete.