Environment setup for NLTK
I would like to suggest to all my readers that they pull the NLPython
repository on GitHub. The repository URL is https://github.com/jalajthanaki/NLPython
I'm using Linux (Ubuntu) as the operating system, so if you are not familiar with Linux, it's better for you to make yourself comfortable with it, because most of the advanced frameworks, such as Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, Apache Flink, Google TensorFlow, and so on, require a Linux operating system.
The GitHub repository contains instructions on how to install Linux, as well as basic Linux commands which we will use throughout this book. On GitHub, you can also find basic commands for GitHub if you are new to Git as well. The URL is https://github.com/jalajthanaki/NLPython/tree/master/ch1/documentation
I'm providing an installation guide for readers to set up the environment for these chapters. The URL is https://github.com/jalajthanaki/NLPython/tree/master/ch1/installation_guide
Steps for installing nltk are as follows (or you can follow the URL: https://github.com/jalajthanaki/NLPython/blob/master/ch1/installation_guide/NLTK%2BSetup.md):
- Install Python 2.7.x manually, but on Linux Ubuntu 14.04, it has already been installed; otherwise, you can check your Python version using the
python -V
command. - Configure pip for installing Python libraries (https://github.com/jalajthanaki/NLPython/blob/master/ch1/installation_guide/NLTK%2BSetup.md).
- Open the terminal, and execute the following command:
pip install nltk or sudo pip install nltk
- Open the terminal, and execute the
python
command. - Inside the Python shell, execute the
import nltk
command.
If your nltk
module is successfully installed on your system, the system will not throw any messages.
- Inside the Python shell, execute the
nltk.download()
command. - This will open an additional dialog window, where you can choose specific libraries, but in our case, click on
All packages
, and you can choose the path where the packages reside. Wait till all the packages are downloaded. It may take a long time to download. After completion of the download, you can find the folder namednltk_data
at the path specified by you earlier. Take a look at the NLTK Downloader in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.6: NLTK Downloader
This repository contains an installation guide, codes, wiki page, and so on. If readers have questions and queries, they can post their queries on the Gitter group. The Gitter group URL is https://gitter.im/NLPython/Lobby?utm_source=share-link&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=share-link