Setting up the development environment

Installing and running Meteor is extremely easy.

For Linux and iOS, all you need is the terminal and cURL. cURL is basically a command-line tool that we can use to move data with URL syntax, such as a GET, POST, and more, all directly from the terminal.

For Windows users, Meteor comes with an installer. You can download it from https://www.meteor.com/install">https://www.meteor.com/install. All the commands in the book are executed in a Linux terminal; just skip the sudo command and execute the commands as administrator if you are on Windows.

If you don't have cURL installed, open your terminal and install it with the following commands:

1. Run update as a superuser:

>> sudo apt-get update

2. Install cURL:

>> sudo apt-get install curl

3. Verify the installation:

 >> curl --version

4. Once you have cURL installed, installing Meteor is easy as it's a one line command:

>> curl https://install.meteor.com/ | sh

This will download the latest version of Meteor, and it will install it globally on your machine. Node.js, NPM, MongoDB, and all other default packages will be inside the .meteor directory.

The final installation looks like this:

Meteor 1.4.4.2 has been installed in your home directory (~/.meteor).
Writing a launcher script to /usr/local/bin/meteor for your convenience.
This may prompt for your password.

In Chapter 9, Build Internet of Things Platform, we will build Node.js apps connecting to a Meteor app. If you don't have Node.js and MongoDB and you want to run them outside Meteor, here's a list of commands and installing scripts that you might find useful:

Install Node.js with cURL	curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_7.x | sudo -E bash - sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
Uninstall Node.js	sudo rm /usr/local/bin/{node,npm}
Update node with NPM	sudo npm cache clean -f sudo npm install -g n sudo n stable
Update to specific version with NPM	sudo n 4.4.4
Check the version of Node.js	node -v or node --version
Check the version of NPM	npm -v or npm --version
Install cURL and check its version	sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install curl curl --versionc
Uninstall cURL	sudo apt-get remove --auto-remove curl
Purging cURL config data	sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove curl
MongoDB install(Ubuntu)	sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org
MongoDB version	mongod --version
Stop MongoDB	sudo service mongod stop
Restart MongoDB	sudo service mongod restart
Remove MongoDB	sudo apt-get purge mongodb-org*
Remove Data Directories	sudo rm -r /var/log/mongodb sudo rm -r /var/lib/mongodb

The following are the Meteor scripts:

Install Meteor	curl https://install.meteor.com/ | sh
Check the Meteor version	meteor --version
Update Meteor to the latest version	meteor update
Check the Node.js version in Meteor	meteor node -v
Create a Meteor App	meteor create app_name
Add an Atmosphere package to a Meteor app	meteor add package_name
Remove Atmosphere package	meteor remove package_name
List all the Atmosphere packages	meteor list
Install an npm package	meteor npm install package_name --save
List all the npm packages	npm list
Run a Meteor app on a specific port; the default is 3000	meteor --port 2000
Launch the MongoDB shell in a meteor app	in the app directory execute meteor mongo
Show all databases from the MongoDB shell	show dbs
Switch to a database	use database_name
Show all collections in a database	show collections
Reset Meteor app	meteor reset