Ask Klaus!
Adding Alice
Question:
Hello, I'm a teacher who would like to familiarize my students more with Alice (Randy Pausch's visual programming language), yet I can't reliably work with it at home. Any ideas on the best way to get Alice visual programming language to work in Linux? Thank you. Don Davis
Answer:
In general, look for software specifically for your operating system. After a short search, some Debian packages showed up for Alice. If you add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file,
deb http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/alice/download/debian stable contrib
you should be able to install the (old) version 1.4 of the programming language's run-time environment with the following command:
sudo aptitude install alice-runtime
At least for Debian/Lenny (and Knoppix), this seems to work.
Under "Alice 3 beta" at the developer's website [3], you can also find a Linux "offline installer" for version 3 [4]. At 516MB, it is amazingly large, and I did not look inside. This beta installer is a self-extracting shell script that can be run by typing the following after download:
sh Alice3BetaInstaller-Complete-3.0.0.0.61-linux.sh
Alice is a 3D framework for Java with its own visual development platform – similar to Eclipse – so you probably only need to have Java and a few Java extensions (Beans) installed as a prerequisite. This is just a guess, though. If you try the beta, please let me know whether it worked. :-)
Note: Make sure you have the most recent stable JRE installed. The best compatibility is usually reached with Sun Microsystems Java [5].
Infos
- Knoppix source repository: http://debian-knoppix.alioth.debian.org/
- nVidia: http://www.nvidiadriver.org/
- Alice developer website: http://www.alice.org/
- Alice offline installer: http://kenai.com/projects/alice/downloads/directory/Alice%203.0.0.0.61
- Java: http://java.com/en/download/linux_manual.jsp?locale=en&host=java.com:80
« Previous 1 2
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Tag Cloud
News
-
Heartbleed Bleeds On
According to a report, many potential victims of the Heartbleed attack have patched their systems, but few have cleaned up the crime scene to protect themselves from the effects of a previous intrusion.
-
Drone Brain Goes Open Source
DARPA and NICTA release the code for the ultra-secure microkernel system used in aerial drones.
-
Password Management Services Vulnerable to Attack
Should you trust an online service to store your online passwords?
-
New Raspberry Pi Adds Two USB Ports
New B+ board lets you build cool things without the complication of a powered USB hub.
-
Microsoft Grabs No-IP.com Domains
Redmond rushes in to root out alleged malware haven.
-
Firefox Steps into 3D
New initiative will bring futuristic virtual reality effects to the web surfing experience.
-
New Trojan Targets Online Banking
Dyreza malware launches a man-in-the-middle attack that compromises SSL.
-
HP Rolls Out Massive Cloud Network
New cloud combines worldwide access with local attention to data security.
-
New Attack Targets Wireless Logins
A first cousin of the recent Heartbleed attack affects EAP-based wireless and peer-to-peer authentication.
-
Geeks Petition for Free Lenovo BIOS
FOSS community acts to protect freedom of choice for laptop devices.