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].

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Knoppix 6.3 Exclusive!

    Knoppix creator (and Q&A mastermind) Klaus Knopper shares some insights on the latest release.

  • Ask Klaus!

    Klaus Knopper is the creator of Knoppix and co-founder of the LinuxTag expo. He currently works as a teacher, programmer, and consultant. If you have a configuration problem, or if you just want to learn more about how Linux works, send your questions to: klaus@linux-magazine.com

  • Multimedia and the Kernel

    We'll show you how to tune up your Linux system for multimedia applications.

  • Ask Klaus

    NVidia graphics problems and setting up an FTP server.

  • Access Control Lists

    The ancient Linux permission system is often insufficient for complex production environments. Access Control Lists offer a flexible alternative.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News