Before starting the exercises, you'll need to do a little bit of work to set things up. Depending on whether you're working through the Guide on your own or participating in an organized tutorial, this may include getting logged in to a remote system, preparing the CCA environment, and building the tutorial code needed for Chapter 2, Assembling and Running a CCA Application.
Getting Connected
Organized Tutorial Participant
If you're participating in an organized tutorial, you'll probably be using a remote system that's already setup with nearly all of the software you need. You'll be given details for your account, your machine assignment, etc. by the tutorial instructors. That info, together with the notes in Appendix A, Remote Access for the CCA Environment should give you sufficient information to get logged in to the remote machine. If you have any problems, ask the tutorial instructors.
Self-Study User
If you're working through the Guide on your own, you may choose to work locally or remotely, depending on the resources you have available. If you're working remotely, you may want to refer to the notes on using the CCA tools remotely in Appendix A, Remote Access for the CCA Environment.
Preparing the CCA Environment
Organized Tutorial Participant
In this case, the CCA tools (Ccaffeine and Babel) will already have been built in a common area. You will have to do is insure that your login environment is properly setup to access those tools. This generally involves adding some directories to your PATH and setting some other environment variables. Instructions will be included with your account information. Some general notes can be found in Section B.4, “Setting Up Your Login Environment”. If you wish to use the Ccaffeine GUI, you will also need to download it and set it up on your local system. Instructions can be found in Section B.2, “The Ccaffeine GUI”.
Self-Study User
In this case, you will need to download and install the CCA tools (Ccaffeine and Babel) and configure your login environment to use them. Instructions can be found in Appendix B, Building the CCA Tools and TAU, and Setting Up Your Environment. If you wish to use the Ccaffeine GUI and you are working on a remote machine, you will need to download the GUI and set it up on your local system. Instructions can be found in Section B.2, “The Ccaffeine GUI”.
Building the Tutorial Code
Organized Tutorial Participant
Once again, the tutorial code will already have been built in a central location. (Though later on, you'll have to build your own copy of the student code tree, so you don't completely escape the work.)
Self-Study User
You'll also need to download and build the tutorial code tree, and later the student code tree. Instructions can be found in Appendix C, Building the Tutorial and Student Code Trees.
Once you've setup everything as outlined above, you should be ready to proceed to Chapter 2, Assembling and Running a CCA Application.