The Ultimate Django Course 1

Running Your Project Using Windows

Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
With WSL you can run Linux natively on Windows. Follow these
instructions to start your Django project inside a Linux environment on
Windows.

Please be aware that setting this up can take an hour or longer. So, follow
all the steps carefully to prevent surprises!

Install WSL
Open Powershell and run:

wsl --install

This will download Ubuntu Linux (the most popular Linux distribution) by
default and will take a few minutes. If nothing happens, you need to explicitly
specify Ubuntu:

wsl --install -d ubuntu

Once the installation is complete, you’ll see a new terminal window running
Linux. The rst time, you’ll need to setup an account to log into Linux.

Once you set up your account, you’ll see Linux command prompt indicated by a $

You can run pwd to print the current working directory. Note that Linux has a
different le system and path than Windows.

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 The Ultimate Django Course 2

Install VSCode Extension

The next step is to tell VSCode to use WSL as your integrated development
environment. To do that, open the Extensions panel and install Remote - WSL
extension from Microsoft.

This extension adds a few commands to VSCode. Open the Command Palette and
type Remote-WSL. Alternatively, you can click on the green remote indicator in
the lower left corner of the status bar

From the list of commands, select Remote-WSL: Reopen Folder in WSL.

This will re-open our project folder in WSL. The rst time, it may take a few
seconds until the required components are downloaded.

The green remote indicator on the status bar will then show that your project is
running on WSL: Ubuntu

Open a terminal window in VSCode. You’ll see the command prompt has changed
from Windows to Linux style (starting with $).

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 The Ultimate Django Course 3

Update the Package List

On Linux, we use APT (Advanced Package Tool) to install or uninstall software, just
like how we use Pip in Python projects.

As a best practice, we should always update the current packages.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Sudo allows us to elevate the current user to have root (admin) privileges. This is
required for running certain commands like updating the package list. Using &&, we
can chain two commands.

After a couple of minutes, you’ll be told how much more space will be required to
upgrade these libraries. After that, allow 15-20 minutes for the update to complete.
Depending on your connection speed, updating may complete in less or more time.

Upgrade Python to 3.9

If you open the Pip le in our project, you’ll see that our Project requires Python 3.9
or higher. Our Linux environment, however, may include an older version of Python.
Run the following command to see the version of Python installed:

python3 --version

If you see Python 3.8, you need to upgrade Python to 3.9

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa

sudo apt install python3.9

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 The Ultimate Django Course 4

Here, rst we tell Linux where it can nd the Python 3.9 package (by adding the
repository) so we can install it using APT.

Verify Python 3.9 is installed:

python3.9 --version

If you run “python3 —version” again, you’ll still see version 3.8. That’s because the
python3 command is linked to python3.8 binary. To change the link, we need to
remove it and add it again:

sudo rm /usr/bin/python3

sudo ln -s python3.9 /usr/bin/python3

Now, check the default version again:

python3 --version

Install pip and pipenv

sudo apt install python3-pip pipenv

Verify that pip and pipenv are successfully installed

pip --version

pipenv --version

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 The Ultimate Django Course 5

Install MySQL
Our Django project uses mysqlclient to talk to MySQL. In order to install this with
pip later, rst we need to install a couple of packages in our Linux environment or
the installation of mysqlclient will fail.

sudo apt install python3.9-dev

sudo apt install libmysqlclient-dev

We could install both these packages in one go but I deliberately split the command
into two so you ensure each package is successfully installed. To verify, run

pip install mysqlclient

You shouldn’t see any errors. If you do, stop and troubleshoot. Remember, Google is
your best friend!

Next, we install MySQL server:

sudo apt install mysql-server

Verify MySQL is installed correctly:

mysql --version

Start the server

sudo service mysql start

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 The Ultimate Django Course 6

Con gure MySQL

Connect to MySQL using the root user.

sudo mysql -u root -p

By default, the root user doesn’t have a password. So press Enter when asked for
the password.

Create a database called storefront3. Note the ; at the end of the command. If you
forget that, the prompt will break into a new line where you can enter a ; to
terminate the command.

CREATE DATABASE storefront3;

Next, set the password for the root user. Note that both root and localhost are
surrounded by single quotes.

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY

‘P@ssword’;

Type quit to exit.

Here, we set the password of the root user to P@ssword. Open settings.py, and set
the same password in the DATABASES setting.

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 The Ultimate Django Course 7

Start the Project

Congratulations! You’ve done all the hard parts. Now, we’re ready to start our
project.

First, install the project dependencies:

pipenv install

Activate the virtual environment:

pipenv shell

Run the migrations:

python manage.py migrate

Optionally, seed the database

python manage.py seed_db

Start the web server

python manage.py runserver

Now, your application is running on WSL. Next time you open VSCode, your
application will continue to run on WSL.

Remember, every time you open a terminal Window, you need to activate the virtual
environment:

pipenv shell

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