Preparing your build system

To get the most out of this first section, you'll need the following elements:

• Two or more computers or virtual machines—I will be using my laptop and an Ubuntu 16.04 VM. The guide should work on 14.04 and 17.04 as well.
• Text Editing Software—I'm using nano.
• Time, patience, and lots of coffee.

Preferably, you should have some basic knowledge of C++ programming. At the very least, you should be able to understand basic compiling errors and how to fix them. Furthermore, this chapter covers a number of technical topics regarding the Bitcoin protocol, which you might want to read up on beforehand in the previous chapters along with the official documentation. Go to https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-documentation.