how to write and run python program using plain text editor and terminal window create folder where your python programs can be locatedsay with name mytest under your home folder this is most conveniently done in the terminal window since you need to use this window anyway to run the program the command for creating new folder is mkdir mytest move to the new foldercd mytest start the editor of your choice write program in the editore just the line print 'hello!save the program under the name myprog py in the mytest folder move to the terminal window and write python myprog py you should see the word hellobeing printed in the window spyder spyder is graphical application for developing and running python programsavailable on all major platforms spyder comes with anaconda and some other pre-built environments for scientific computing with python on ubuntu it is conveniently installed by sudo apt-get install spyder the left part of the spyder window contains plain text editor click in this window and write print 'hello!and return choose run from the run pulldown menuand observe the output helloin the lower right window where the output from programs is visible you may continue with more advanced statements involving graphicsimport matplotlib pyplot as plt import numpy as np np linspace( np exp(- )*np sin(np pi*xplt plot( ,yplt title('first test of spyder'plt savefig('tmp png'plt show(choosing run run now leads to separate window with plot of the function sin xfigure shows how the spyder application may look like the plot file we generate in the above programtmp pngis by default found in the spyder folder listed in the default text in the top of the program you can choose run configure to change this folder as desired the program you write is written to file temp py in the same default folderbut any name and folder can be specified in the standard file save as menu convenient feature of spyder is that the upper right window continuously displays documentation of the statements you write in the editor to the left