There are several ways to install a package of files and scripts. You can manually download and transfer files, you can use a pretty installation wizard/package with lots of "next" buttons, or you can do what real developers do, and use the command line. It puts hair on your chest. Which, now that I think about it, may not be a very desirable thing. Okay, no hair; I lied. But still, you want to use the command line, trust me. Trust the person that just lied to you.
curl
(or cURL if you want to get fancy) is a command-line tool used to transfer files and run scripts, using standard URL locations. You probably already knew that, or you probably don't care. Either way, we've described it and we're now moving on to using it.
Open a terminal window or the command line, and enter the following:
$ curl https://install.meteor.com | /bin/sh
Tip
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.PacktPub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.PacktPub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
This will install Meteor on your system. curl
is the command to go and fetch the script. https://install.meteor.com is the URL/location of the script, and /bin/sh
is, of course, the location of the script interpreter "Shell", which will run the script.
Once you've run this script, assuming you have an Internet connection and the proper permissions, you will see the Meteor package download and install:
The key thing we're looking for in the preceding installation text is the location of Meteor:
Installing Meteor to /usr/local/meteor
This location will vary depending on if you're running this in Linux or Mac OS X, but it puts Meteor into a location where you can then access the Meteor script from anywhere else. This will become important in a minute. For now, let's see what kind of friendly message we get when the Meteor installation is finished:
Meteor installed! To get started fast: $ meteor create ~/my_cool_app $ cd ~/my_cool_app $ meteor Or see the docs at: docs.meteor.com
Great! You've successfully installed Meteor, and you're on your way to creating your first Meteor web application!
Tip
You should bookmark http://docs.meteor.com as an invaluable reference moving forward.