Distro

For ease of use you should install the latest version of Linux Mint 19.2 Tina, Cinnamon Edition is modern and clean. Otherwise you might find software versions hopelessly out of date, you can get round it but is is more work. In general you want the non-free (as in closed source) graphics drivers for opengl performance (Mint will likely install them for you).

Required Dependencies

Java

If there is currently a linker problem with stock OpenJDK the install [Eclipse Temurin version which is available as a deb package. But you have to add the repository to your setup as follows:-

wget -qO - https://[Eclipse Temurin][adopt].jfrog.io/[Eclipse Temurin][adopt]/api/gpg/key/public | sudo apt-key add -

sudo add-apt-repository --yes https://[Eclipse Temurin][adopt].jfrog.io/[Eclipse Temurin][adopt]/deb/

sudo apt-get install -y software-properties-common

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install openjdk-17-hotspot

Use debian update-alternatives tool to manage configuration for java:-

sudo update-alternatives --config java # to configure if required
sudo update-alternatives --config javac # to configure if required
sudo update-alternatives --config jruby

MRI Ruby

Install MRI ruby (should be at least ruby-2.6), if you are not using rvm or rbenv, then you should create a home in a local folder to store your gems eg ~/.gem/ruby/2.6.0 to store your gems:-

mkdir -p ~/.gem/ruby/2.6.0

To get gem command to use this location set GEM_HOME and GEM_PATH in ~/.profile and add the GEM_PATH/bin to PATH as below:-

export GEM_HOME="$HOME/.gem/ruby/2.6.0"
export GEM_PATH="$HOME/.gem/ruby/2.6.0"
# set PATH so it includes user's private bin directories
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$HOME/.local/bin:$GEM_PATH/bin:$PATH"

JRuby

Download and install latest jruby (in the /opt folder makes sense). See [JRuby downloads][downloads] for latest releases.

Use update-alternatives to install and maintain configuration eg for jruby:-

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/jruby jruby /opt/jruby-9.3.1.0/bin/jruby 100
sudo update-alternatives --config jruby # to configure if required

propane

jgem install propane # or `jruby -S gem`, use rvm at your own risk...

Install Samples

propane --install Samples

Install Sound library

propane --install Sound

Install Video library the past but stable?

propane --install Video

Install GLVideo library the future but unstable

propane --install glvideo
# experimental, expected to work on Raspberry-Pi debian-linux and MacOS

Optional extra Atom

Even if you’ve been using vim/emacs it might be worth at least giving atom a try, if you are coming from Windows you should probably install it!!! Vim/Emacs might come as bit of a shock.

See website (or scroll to bottom of releases page for downloads on github)

For linux ignore any distro version and download latest version (at least1.44.0) and:-

sudo dpkg --install atom-amd64.deb # debian, mint, ubuntu

Running examples

To explore the installed examples:-

cd ~/propane_samples
rake # to run examples randomly as a demo
# or check available tasks with
rake --tasks
# use a task to randomly run a group of sketches eg
rake shaders # runs the shader examples

To create a simple sketch:-

propane -c fred 200 200 # sketch name=Fred width=200 height=200 mode=default
propane -c my_sketch 300 300 p2d # sketch name=MySketch width=300 height=300 mode=P2D

Edit fred.rb or my_sketch.rb with your favourite editor preferably vim, emacs or atom.

To run sketch using the command line

jruby fred.rb

To run a sketch from editor see [editors][editors]