Install the required dependencies

Before you begin

Irrespective of the kind of Arm machine you use, the instructions for this learning paths are going to be the same. You need to login via SSH into your remote server or open a terminal on your local VM or physical machine. This learning path uses Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

Install the latest version of Python (optional)

Ubuntu 22.04 offers pre-installed Python 3.10 binaries. You can just use this version or alternatively, you can install the latest version of Python. A quick way to install the most recent version of Python is via Deadsnakes PPA .

Add the Deadsnakes repository:

    

        
        
            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt update
        
    

Install Python 3.12.

    

        
        
            sudo apt install python3.12 python3.12-venv
        
    

Check that Python 3.12 works as expected, shown in the output below:

    

        
        ~$ python3.12
Python 3.12.0 (main, Oct 21 2023, 17:42:12) [GCC 11.4.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> exit()

        
    

Install the web server and the database

This learning path uses Nginx as the web server and PostgreSQL as the database for the Django application.

To install Nginx using a package manager on Ubuntu:

    

        
        
            sudo apt install nginx
        
    

To install PostgreSQL using a package manager on Ubuntu, follow the postgresql.org install instructions .

You can also use a different web server and database. If you do, you will have to change the appropriate configuration files in the later sections.

Install tree package

As you will use the tree command in later sections to inspect your directory file tree structure, ensure you have the package installed first:

    

        
        
            sudo apt install tree
        
    

Create the virtual environment

Using a virtual environment when dealing with python code is always good practice. This is because it allows you to run multiple applications with different dependencies in the same OS without conflicts.

Create and activate the virtual environment:

    

        
        
            python3.12 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
        
    

The prompt of your terminal has (venv) as a prefix and this means the virtual environment is now active. From this point on, you will run all the commands inside your virtual environment.

Install python dependencies

With the active virtual environment, you can now install the Python dependencies for running your Django application.

    

        
        
            pip install django gunicorn psycopg[binary]
        
    

After the installation, verify that you have the right packages installed:

    

        
        
            pip list
        
    

The output should look similar to (version numbers might change):

    

        
        Package           Version
----------------- -------
asgiref           3.7.2
Django            4.2.7
gunicorn          21.2.0
packaging         23.2
pip               23.3.1
psycopg           3.1.12
psycopg-binary    3.1.12
sqlparse          0.4.4
typing_extensions 4.8.0

        
    

In order to have a production-like installation, you need gunicorn which is a Python WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) HTTP server for UNIX and is compatible with Django.

To verify you are able to run Django and Gunicorn, try importing them with Python as shown below:

    

        
        
            (venv) ~$ python
Python 3.12.0 (main, Oct 21 2023, 17:42:12) [GCC 11.4.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import django
>>> import gunicorn
>>> django.VERSION
(4, 2, 7, 'final', 0)
>>> gunicorn.version_info
(21, 2, 0)