Install and Launch a Linux Preview

This chapter downloads one immutable Odra preview, reviews its terms and third-party notices, verifies its checksum, installs it below ~/.local/, and exposes the editor as odra without a source checkout or an installed Racket runtime.

Before You Begin

Use a Linux x86-64 system with a UTF-8 terminal. The supported system runtime provides glibc, the GCC runtime, LZ4, ncursesw, and zlib. Install curl, sha256sum, tar, and unzstd before continuing.

The commands below use version 0.2.0 as an example. Replace it with the published version you were given.

Review the Preview Terms and Notices

Define the package names and create user-owned download and installation directories:

VERSION=0.2.0
PLATFORM=linux-x86_64
PACKAGE_BASE="https://forge.adrianpk.com/api/packages/odra/generic/odra-preview/$VERSION"
STEM="odra-$VERSION-$PLATFORM"
DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads/$STEM"
INSTALL_PARENT="$HOME/.local/opt/odra"
COMMAND_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin"
mkdir -p "$DOWNLOAD_DIR" "$INSTALL_PARENT" "$COMMAND_DIR"
cd "$DOWNLOAD_DIR"

Download the public terms and third-party notices before downloading the binary archive:

curl --fail --location --remote-name "$PACKAGE_BASE/$STEM-PREVIEW_TERMS.md"
curl --fail --location --remote-name "$PACKAGE_BASE/$STEM-THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md"
less "$STEM-PREVIEW_TERMS.md"
less "$STEM-THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md"

Continue only if the preview terms are acceptable for the intended evaluation. Complete third-party license texts are also included inside the archive under LICENSES/.

Download and Verify the Preview

Download the archive and its checksum:

ARCHIVE="$STEM.tar.zst"
CHECKSUM="$ARCHIVE.sha256"
curl --fail --location --remote-name "$PACKAGE_BASE/$ARCHIVE"
curl --fail --location --remote-name "$PACKAGE_BASE/$CHECKSUM"
sha256sum --check "$CHECKSUM"

The checksum command must print the archive name followed by OK. Do not extract or run an archive that fails this check.

Install Odra

Confirm that the selected version and command locations are unused, then extract the single versioned directory and create the stable command link:

test ! -e "$INSTALL_PARENT/$STEM"
test ! -e "$COMMAND_DIR/odra" && test ! -L "$COMMAND_DIR/odra"
tar --use-compress-program=unzstd --extract --file "$ARCHIVE" \
  --directory "$INSTALL_PARENT"
ln --symbolic "$INSTALL_PARENT/$STEM/bin/odra" "$COMMAND_DIR/odra"

If either test command fails, stop and inspect the existing path. Do not replace an existing installation or command until you know who owns it.

Add the command directory to the current shell:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Add the same line once to the startup file used by your login shell so future terminal sessions inherit it. Common locations are ~/.bashrc for Bash and ~/.zshrc for Zsh.

Verify the Installed Command

Confirm that the shell resolves the installed command:

command -v odra

The output is the user-owned command path:

/home/your-name/.local/bin/odra

Launch the editor through that command:

odra

Odra opens the Startup screen. The bundle resolves its embedded Racket runtime relative to the installed executable; no racket command or source repository is required. Press Control-X, then Control-C to exit cleanly.

Recover from Installation Problems

If a download returns 404, confirm that the version is published and that the complete package URL is unchanged. Do not substitute a development branch name for the numeric package version.

If checksum verification fails, remove the archive and checksum and download both again. A published version is immutable; a different checksum for the same filename is not an accepted update.

If command -v odra produces no output, export ~/.local/bin into PATH in the current shell and confirm that ~/.local/bin/odra is the symbolic link created above. Do not continue to later chapters until command -v odra resolves that link.

If the executable reports a missing shared library, install the named baseline runtime component through the system package manager. If it reports a missing bundled resource, preserve the extracted directory and diagnostic output when reporting the failure; do not copy resources from a source checkout or a local Racket installation.

Verify the Result

You have completed this chapter when the public terms and notices are readable, sha256sum reports OK, command -v odra resolves the user-owned command, and odra opens the Startup screen without an installed Racket executable.

Continue with Prepare the User Guide Exercises.

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