Installing Julia Studio properly on Windows 7 - Step by Step Instructions

[Dominik Holenstein]

I needed several attempts until I could start working with Julia Studio on Windows 7. 

Most of the issues I faced were related to the package management and that Julia Studio creates the package folder for Julia automatically if you don't set the JULIA_PKGDIR path. This may work in most environments but it didn't on the notebook I use at work. 

These are the steps I had to follow to make Julia Studio (v. 0.43) running properly on Windows 7:

• Set the JULIA_PKGDIR variable
  • Create a folder named for example Julia Packages on your computer.
    • I added it to the My Documents folder
    • I tried to create this folder in the Google Drive folder but this did not work properly
  • Go to
    Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Environment Variables
  • Under User variables click New... and add this:
    • Variable Name: JULIA_PKGDIR
    • Variable Value: [the path to your Julia Packages folder]
• Download and install Julia Studio: http://forio.com/julia/downloads/
• Start Julia Studio
• No packages are installed. This is correct
• If you are behind a firewall you may have to run this command in the console first:
  • run(`git config --global url."https://".insteadOf git://`)
• Initialize the package repository now by running this command in the console:
  • Pkg.status()
• Now you can start adding packages to your environment
  • http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.2/manual/packages/#adding-and-removing-packages
• Done + Enjoy!

Is this useful for you? 

Inputs, corrections, comments and questions are much appreciated. 

Regards,

Dominik

[Elliot Saba]

Thanks for writing this up, Dominik.  I'm curious, what issues did you run into when trying to set your JULIA_PKGDIR to your google drive?

[Kees van Prooijen]

Thanks for writing this up Dominik. I'm sure it will be a help for people. We will take it along in future documentation.

[Dominik Holenstein]

Man thanks for your replies.

@ Elliot

The issues I run into when I set the JULIA_PKGDIR on Google Drive were that some folders were missing important git files or that some packages couldn't been installed correctly. I don't know the reason for these issues but I suppose that the Google Drive app runs constantly in the background while indexing the files and doing clean ups. I consider testing this option with Dropbox because I want to use the same package setup at work and at home.

@ Kees

That's fine, thank you!

Dominik

[Dominik Holenstein]

 Another option instead of using Google Drive or Dropbox is to put the JULIA_PKGDIR and all Julia project folders and source files onto an USB-stick or external hard drive.

I will test this option within the next days and report back here.

Dominik

 

[Job van der Zwan]

On Wednesday, 27 November 2013 09:17:32 UTC+1, Dominik Holenstein wrote:

Most of the issues I faced were related to the package management and that Julia Studio creates the package folder for Julia automatically if you don't set the JULIA_PKGDIR path.

The .julia folder I had was set to read-only for some reason (and unchecking that fixed Pkg for me). Could this be related?

[Dominik Holenstein]

Hi Job,

You get 100 points!

Yes, this was one of the issues I have when placing the Julia package folder on Google Drive. 

Unchecking read-only doesn't help on my notebook as the folder is reverted back to read-only immediately.

Dominik

[Katharine Brydges]

Thanks for all of the feedback, this will greatly help! In the next Windows distribution, we will include a readme file that lists things to check if users are running into problems getting started with JuliaStudio and we will include the feedback you have given. 

[Stéphane Laurent]

That does not work for me:

julia> Pkg.status()

ErrorException("Unable to read directory METADATA.")

[Stéphane Laurent]

Ok after doing:

julia> Pkg.init()

[pamj...@gmail.com]

Hi,

After I started Julia Studio I received this message in the Output Console window:

ERROR: package directory C:\Users\pamela_j\Documents\v0.3 doesn't exist; run Pkg.init() to create it.

 in error at error.jl:21

 in cd at pkg/dir.jl:25

while loading C:\Program Files\JuliaStudio-0.4.5\julia-studio\share\julia-studio\Console\Console.jl, in expression starting on line 1

Therefore, I don't have even the chance to write any command in the Console window as Julia> doesn't appear. What can I do?

I hope you can help me,

Thanks,

Pam.

[Iain Dunning]

I'm not even sure JuliaStudio works with 0.3, which it looks like its trying to do.

[pamj...@gmail.com]

Thanks Iain. So then how could I fix it?

On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 8:17:32 AM UTC, Dominik Holenstein wrote:

[Isaiah Norton]

JuliaStudio will probably accept pull requests to support 0.3 if you can debug the problem. Otherwise, it is best to try a different option such as IJulia, Juno/LightTable, or Sublime-IJulia.