Steps To Create A Developer Environment In Linux

​In every modern industry, software or application development is crucial for the organization, you can name it, movie industries, health care, music, agriculture, and other known areas, all these areas rely on development. From small projects to big projects like Google or Facebook, from your smartphone to your Smart TV, and more. This article is to let you know how to create a developer environment, what tools you will need for a basic developer environment.  

1. Install a database

​Every development environment needs a database and it doesn’t matter if your software or application is in the production or development stage.

There are plenty of databases you can choose, from SQL to NoSQL databases. Below are a few choices you can make regarding databases:

Also Read – Difference between MySQL and PostgreSQL

MySQL

​An open source relational database management system (RDBMS), to install run the following command on CLI: sudo apt install mysql-server ​During the installation, you will be prompted to set MySQL root password.

After installation to login just run – mysql -u root -p yourpassword

PostgreSQL

​An Object-Relational Database Management System (ORDBMS)  with additional or optional use of object oriented features. To install run the following command:

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ `lsb_release -cs`-pgdg main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list'
$ wget -q https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc -O - | sudo apt-key add -   

Update your system and install:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib ​

PostgreSQL database by default creates a user Postgres with Postgres privileges and an account with the same name. To connect to PostgreSQL you need to use the Postgres user created and connect to a database using the command bellow:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ psql 

Alternatively, you can install Postgres using snap packages:

$ sudo snap install postgresql10   
MongoDB

MongoDB is a document database with the scalability and flexibility. It stores data in flexible, JSON-like documents, meaning fields can vary from document to document and data structure can be changed over time.To install on Ubuntu, first import a public GPG key –

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 0C49F3730359A14518585931BC711F9BA15703C6 

Create a file list for MongoDB

Create the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.4.list list file using the command appropriate for your version of Ubuntu:

echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 ] http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu xenial/mongodb-org/3.4 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.4.list ​

Update your system –

sudo apt-get update

Finally, install MongoDB

sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org   

2. Install IDE

​IDE (integrated development environment) is a software application that provides tools and facilitates software development for computer programmers:

Also Read – 8 Best IDE Or Code Editors For Linux

There are many IDE you can use for your application development is the most used Netbeans, Intellij Idea, and eclipse. We will talk about Eclipse which is a good IDE and is full of features and plugins.

Eclipse IDE

​Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) used in computer programming and is the most widely used Java IDE. It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. Eclipse is mostly used in Java but is used in other languages like C derivatives and PHP.

To install Eclipse you can download the zip file from its website or use the Eclipse installer.

​After starting the installer choose what you what to install. If is a Java Environment, PHP or any other.

​On the next steps, you have to choose the location where you want to install your IDE.  

3. Install a web server for your application

​If you’re developing a web application you will need a web application. For J2EE developers we will use Apache Tomcat and for PHP users, Apache.  

Apache Tomcat

To install apache tomcat you can download from official website and extract on your desired folder or your can use terminal –

wget www-us.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.0.M21/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.0.M21.tar.gz  

Apache web server

​To install Apache web server write in terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2

To start run sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start ​Head to your browser and go to localhost to see if it loads.  

Install PHP

​It is not a web server but since it works alongside Apache you can install it with:

sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5   

4. Other options

​There are more options to make your system complete by installing more tools:​

Gitkraken –  for versioning control;
Maven – for dependencies control;
Haroopad –  to create, edit, read markdown files;  

Conclusion

This article is just to let you know a few tools to create your development environment and this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you are a developer you already have most of the tools here installed and you can share your ideas in the comment section below. What have you installed on your computer?