Installation - JS-Produksiyon/pulsar GitHub Wiki

Pulsar is designed to work without being installed. To use Pulsar, you can either download the most recent compiled executable (Windows) or app (MacOS)from the Releases page, or clone the repository to your system. Here is how to do it.

Windows or MacOS Release

  1. Visit the Releases page and download the most recent release in ZIP format.
  2. Extract the contents of the ZIP file to a location of your choice.
  3. Run Pulsar according to the instructions found in Usage

Upon first run on Windows, you may receive an error message saying that the software is untrustworthy. This is because Windows does not like executables signed with a self-signed certificate, which is what we used to sign the executable. Windows Defender may even attempt to quarantine pulsar.exe as Trojan:Script/Wacatac.B!ml malware. If you wish to use the executable as it is, ignore the warning and set the folder containing pulsar.exe to be exempted from scanning. Otherwise, download the source code (see below), look it over to see that there is no malware in it, and compile it yourself. See the Wiki for more information.

Source Code

  1. Either download the source code archive from the Releases page and extract it on your machine, or clone the repository to your machine using the git clone https://github.com/JS-Produksiyon/pulsar.git command in a command line (PowerShell on Windows or Terminal on Mac).

    Git will need to be installed on your machine to use the cloning method.

  2. In the command line, enter the directory (folder) containing the Pulsar source code and create a Python virtual environment:

    python3.11 -m venv venv

  3. Activate the virtual environment:

    PowerShell: venv/Scripts/Activate.ps1

    Windows Command Prompt: venv/Scripts/activate.bat

    MacOS: source venv/bin/activate

  4. Load the necessary requirements from the pulsar directory (folder):

    pip install -r requirements.txt

    Note: this must be run in the directory (folder) containing requirements.txt file! Don't run it from within the src/ directory or it may throw an error.

  5. Run the application from the command line using the following command:

    python src/pulsar.py

Linking to the Start Menu or Launchpad

Pulsar can be manually linked to the Start Menu on Windows by right-clicking the pulsar.exe file and selecting Pin to Start.

On MacOS, copy the app file to the Applications folder for it to show up in the Launchpad.

Uninstalling Pulsar

Windows

Since Pulsar does not formally install itself in Windows, disconnecting from the Nebula network and deleting the folder containing the executable or app is enough to remove it from your system. You may still need to manually remove the Nebula TAP driver used for Nebula connectivity, though leaving it in your system is not a big deal.

The link in the Start Menu will need to be removed manually, as well.

MacOS

On MacOS, after deleting the Pulsar application from the Applications folder, you will need to remove the /User/[username]/Library/Application Support/Pulsar folder as well.

Previous Page: System Requirements

Next Page: Usage

Last Updated: 2024-06-28