Before reading this guide

Before reading this guide, you should have (or acquire) some basic knowledge about writing Python programs in a free open source project.


Lino is mostly written in the Python programming language. You need to know for example

  • what's an object, a string, a list, a dict, a float

  • the difference between a class method and an instance method

  • what's a generator

  • what's a decorator

  • when and how to use subprocesses and threads

  • what are the following standard modules used for: datetime, sys, os, re, decimal, logging, ...

  • the major differences between Python 2 and 3


Lino applications are Django projects.

  • You need to know how to get a Django project up and running. (You should have followed the Tutorial) You need to know what a file is.

  • You need to know most about Django's model layer : the Model class, the field types, executing database queries, ...


Lino is hosted on Github. You need to know how to use this collaboration platform.

  • You have read the GitHub Help pages, especially the "Bootcamp" and "Setup" sections.

  • You have created a free account on GitHub and made a fork of Lino.

  • You are able to make some change in your working copy, commit your branch and send a pull request.


Documentation about Lino is written using Sphinx.

  • You should know how Sphinx works and why we use it to write Lino documentation. See Building the Lino Book for the first steps.

  • You might want to use the same blogging system as Luc and to document your own contributions to Lino in a developer blog.

The UNIX shell

Lino is a web application framework. You are going to install it on web servers. Free people use free operating systems.

  • You know the meaning of shell commands like ls, cp, rm, cd, ls

  • You have written your own bash scripts. You know how to use shell variables and functions.

  • You know what is a pipe, what is redirection

  • You can configure your bash and know about the files .bashrc and .bash_aliases.

HTML, CSS and Javascript

  • You need to understand the meaning of tags like <body>, <ul>, <li> ...

  • You should know what an AJAX request is.


Lino is a part of Django and therefore uses relational databases (SQL). You don't usually need to write SQL yourself when using Lino, but it is of course important to understand the concepts behind a database. And on a production server you will have to deal with database servers like MySQL or PostgreSQL when doing database snapshots or running migrations.