This document describes the installation of the FarmData2 Development Environment. If you are interested in installing FarmData2 as a user, see the Using FarmData2 section in the README.md document.
FarmData2 provides a fully containerized Linux-based development environment for working on the FarmData2 project. Using this FarmData2 Development Environment ensures that you have the correct versions of all the tools, libraries and other dependencies needed to do FarmData2 development.
The Linux-based FarmData2 Development Environment.
The FarmData2 Development Environment can be installed in four ways:
- Running in GitHub Codespaces - This is the quickest and easiest way to get started. With this install the Development Environment runs online and is accessed through the browser or a VNC client. But, it cannot be used off-line and GitHub Codespace usage limits will provide up to 90 hours of free use per month.
- Running Locally with Docker Desktop - This install has no free time limit and can be used off-line. But, it requires that your machine have enough resources (~16 GB RAM and 8 CPU cores) and that you install some dependencies on your machine.
- Native Installation - Use of the FarmData2 Development Environment, either by using GitHub Codespaces or a local install is encouraged. But, if you strongly prefer to work directly on your local machine all the necessary dependencies can, in theory, be installed natively. This approach is much more labor intensive and you might encounter significant difficulties that are dependent upon the versions of software installed on your local machine.