Notes for Windows users

Notes for Windows users#

Warning

If you do not use Windows, you can skip this page and directly step to the next subject.

Until recently, Windows was clearly not optimal for scientific programming and computing. However, things are moving fast and it is now quite easy to setup a good programming environment on Windows. However, it takes a bit of time and effort.

Here are few notes to prepare your Windows computer for programming:

  • Avoid the old and quite bad “Command Prompt” and prefer the Windows terminal (that should be installed manually for Windows <11).

  • Install Ubuntu with WSL.

    You will have a Linux in your Windows to be able to compile like on supercomputers and even run parallel programs using MPI.

  • If you want to be able to compile code natively on Windows (not mandatory), you need to install the “Microsoft Build Tools”.

For this course, we will give indications how to setup the Windows and the WSL parts. Realize that after a fresh installation of Ubuntu with WSL, you have a quasi empty Linux system and you need to install programs in it.

Important

Windows users have therefore to setup their newly installed Ubuntu as described in the following and in particular in Notes for Linux and WSL users.