Hackathon How-To: Gephi Social Network Software Installation & First Data Set

UPDATE 11/14/14: Once you download Gephi, make sure to copy it into your Applications folder. Before If you have a new Mac, you need not complete step #5.

Hallo to those you at the Bowdoin Hackathon tonight and to you far away as well! For those of you new to social network analysis, Gephi is an incredible, free and open source software platform, you can download at gephi.org–then be sure to copy it to your Applications folder. I’ll be offering a tutorial using netvizz and Facebook data at 7 p.m. in the VAC 304.

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For those with a Mac, you must follow these extra steps from our friends the hackers at github:

  1. download and install this: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572
  2. delete your gephi settings dir: rm -r ~/Library/Application\ Support/gephi
  3. find your java home with /usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6, it should print something like /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
  4. if there is a message about being unable to find any JVMs matching version 1.6 something is wrong, fix it
  5. edit /Applications/Gephi.app/Contents/Resources/gephi/etc/gephi.conf to set your jdkhome e.g. like this: echo “jdkhome=\”$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6)\”” >> /Applications/Gephi.app/Contents/Resources/gephi/etc/gephi.conf
  6. start gephi and open the Les Miserables “quick start” instructional for those who are new to Gephi and grab this data sample, if you see the graph good.
  7. check gephi’s about for the line saying Java: 1.6.0_65; Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 20.65-b04-462

To learn Gephi, you will need to open the Les Miserables “quick start” instructional and grab this data sample. Now, off you go, networked and all!