netcdf package install instructions

[pepaaran]

More detailed instructions for each OS. Especially Macos with brew. Find good resources online that we can point them to.

Add a test script to test whether the installation was successful: something that runs Koen's example to load a netcdf

[padasch]

For Windows:

• Point to https://docs.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf-c/current/winbin.html telling the need to download and run "4.9.1-NC4-64.exe"

For MacOS:

Actually, I just found out that you don't need MacPorts, you can also do via homebrew but I did not know that yesterday... But package installation worked nonetheless.

Important: Explain what the terminal is and how to open it (search for "Terminal" in applications). Terminal introduction is useful for windows too, I guess.

Via homebrew (easier because they also needed it for git, but did not try that yesterday)

• Copy-paste the text in the box under "install homebrew" from the website.
• Type into terminal brew --version.
  • If version number is shown, you are good to go.
  • If nothing pops up, restart Mac and type in again. If still nothing shows, check with teaching assistance.
• Type in brew install netcdf following this.
• Restart RStudio if it was open during the steps above. Enter install.packages("ncdf4") and see if it installs it correctly.
  • If installation failed, there should be a message "Installation failed with non-zero exit" (or so, don't have the right spelling in my head right away). If so, check with teaching assistance.

Via MacPorts (worked yesterday)

• Tell to install xcode via terminal by typing in xcode-select --install (if not installed already)
• Tell where to find OS Version (Apple Icon in menu bar at the top of screen -> Systeminformation, I think). Click on respective version for MacPorts here and run the downloaded .pkg file.
• Install netcdf using sudo port install netcdf following this.

Varia:

• Would be nice to add a sentence what netcdf files are, to give students some context of why we need this. Heard it couple times yesterday: "What is this netcdf stuff?"

[pepaaran]

Are we using the netCDF C library? @khufkens There's also a Fortran version but I don't know which one students should install, or if it matters which one they install.

[khufkens]

Basically when the system/install refers to a particular version, go with that. Basically we should have a windows machine in house just for testing purposes alone (if we want to really address these issues) - a cheap burner will do.

[khufkens]

For geospatial libraries on linux this should install the bulk of it: https://github.com/bluegreen-labs/BGLabs_research_environment/blob/c52dfec284452ffdd68431b128dad2bfec4479d1/bglabs_system_setup.sh#L93

sudo apt install gdal-bin libgdal-dev

[khufkens]

Fixed the final unit test