Now that a new Ubuntu LTS has been available for a while, it’s about time to set it up for F# and this time some SAFE stack development as well.

Requirements

For F#, we need:

For working with Fable we also need:

Adding repositories

Since curl is not installed by default, we start with that:

sudo apt-get -y install curl

Then we can add all the required repositories:

# dotnet core sdk
wget -q https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# VSCode
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > microsoft.gpg
sudo mv microsoft.gpg /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/microsoft.gpg
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list'

# Mono
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF
echo "deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-bionic main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list

# Yarn
curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list

# Node
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash -

Installing everything

Due to this issue with Yarn, we first have to remove the cmdtest package before installing Yarn:

sudo apt-get remove cmdtest

Then we can install all the things!

sudo apt-get -y install apt-transport-https
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install fsharp dotnet-sdk-2.1 code fonts-firacode yarn nodejs

If you want to keep your dotnet CLI up to date, install the dotnet-sdk-2.1 package, since it installs the newest available dotnet-sdk-2.1.xxx version when running apt-get upgrade. To only install specific versions (which can be installed side-by-side) install the specific dotnet-sdk-2.1.xxx package you want instead.

You can check which versions of the SDK you have installed by running:

$ dotnet --info
.NET Core SDK (reflecting any global.json):
 Version:   2.1.403
 Commit:    04e15494b6

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     ubuntu
 OS Version:  18.04
 OS Platform: Linux
 RID:         ubuntu.18.04-x64
 Base Path:   /usr/share/dotnet/sdk/2.1.403/

Host (useful for support):
  Version: 2.1.5
  Commit:  290303f510

.NET Core SDKs installed:
  2.1.105 [/usr/share/dotnet/sdk]
  2.1.200 [/usr/share/dotnet/sdk]
  2.1.403 [/usr/share/dotnet/sdk]

.NET Core runtimes installed:
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.All 2.1.5 [/usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.All]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 2.1.5 [/usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.0.7 [/usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 2.1.5 [/usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App]

To install additional .NET Core runtimes or SDKs:
  https://aka.ms/dotnet-download

Setting up VSCode

First we want to install some extensions for F# development:

code --install-extension Ionide.ionide-fsharp
code --install-extension Ionide.ionide-Paket
code --install-extension Ionide.ionide-FAKE
code --install-extension ms-vscode.csharp
code --install-extension donjayamanne.githistory
code --install-extension github.vscode-pull-request-github

The ms-vscode.csharp extension is to add debugging support when working in VSCode. donjayamanne.githistory gives you a nice view of the Git log and visual commit graph among other things. github.vscode-pull-request-github gives you a list of PRs straight into VSCode. It is still in preview, but already has a lot of useful stuff it can do.

Next we want to enable the Fira code font and make Ionide use netcore instead of mono. You might want to add this to a file and execute it or you can try to copy/paste into a terminal. Or just open VSCode and press Ctrl+, and paste the settings in there.

folder="$HOME/.config/Code/User"
file="$folder/settings.json"

mkdir -p $folder
cat >> $file <<EOF
{
    "editor.fontLigatures": true,
    "editor.fontFamily": "Fira Code",
    "editor.fontSize": 14,
    "FSharp.fsacRuntime": "netcore"
}
EOF

Setting up Git branch info in terminal

I still like to have the Git branch and status shown in the bash prompt when I’m inside folder with a git repository. The current branch appears inside parentheses like this:

me@mycomputer:~/src/mygitrepo (my-feature-branch)$

The Git source code contains a script which can be used to show this information. To set it up, first fetch the git-prompt.sh script:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/git/git/master/contrib/completion/git-prompt.sh -o .git-prompt.sh

Then open ~/.bashrc in your favorite editor and add the following at the bottom:

# Git branch info in terminal prompt
. ~/.git-prompt.sh
export GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=1
export GIT_PS1_SHOWCOLORHINTS=true
export PROMPT_COMMAND='__git_ps1 "\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]" "\\\$ "'

There are some additional environment variables that can be set which are explained in .git-prompt.sh

Adding some Git aliases for less typing

It can become a bit cumbersome to write the whole Git commands all the time, so adding a few aliases for the most common ones is a good idea. Write the following in a shell:

git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.cob "checkout -b"
git config --global alias.ci commit
git config --global alias.cm '!git add -A && git commit -m'
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.br branch
git config --global alias.bra "branch -a"

Now you can write things like:

  • git co instead of git checkout
  • git st instead of git status
  • git br instead of git branch
  • git cm "My change" instead of git add -A && git commit -m "My change"

Start coding

There is a SAFE dojo repository you can clone to get started.

cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/CompositionalIT/SAFE-Dojo.git
cd SAFE-Dojo
./build.sh run

Now just wait for the build to finish and your browser will open automatically to show the page in all its glory. Now you can go to the instructions to work your way through the dojo.

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