Huanfa Chen

Huanfa Chen

he/him

Associate Professor in Spatial Data Science, UCL CASA

Using duckbd on WSL

1 minute read

Published:

Updates 2025/05/28

My colleagues strongly recommended duckdb for (spatial) data analysis. Therefore, I started to install and learn duckdb.

This note would keep a record of how I installed and used duckdb on Windows WSL.

What is DuckDB

My understanding (and questions) of DuckDB is –

  • A lightweight database tool on local machine (Q: can duckdb read a file from a remote machine?)
  • Using SQL for data query and analysis
  • Can work as a command line tool (CLI) or with Python or with R
  • Much more efficient than pandas as it can read a subset of data into memory rather than the whole dataset; can replace pandas
  • Support geospatial operations (GIS!)

Installing duckdb

Installing DuckDB as a Python library is straightforward. If you use pip, then simply run this line: pip install duckdb.

Installing DuckDB as CLI takes several steps. According to this page:

DuckDB is currently not available via apt/yum.
Please use one of the following binaries:
https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/releases/download/v0.10.3/duckdb_cli-linux-amd64.zip
https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/releases/download/v0.10.3/duckdb_cli-linux-aarch64.zip

It took three steps to install DuckDB on WSL:

Step 1: download the installer. Run the following command in WSL command line.

wget https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/releases/download/v0.10.3/duckdb_cli-linux-amd64.zip

Step 2: unzip it. Again, run the following in command line (if you don’t have unzip installed, install it). Then, you will get a file called duckdb in the current folder.

unzip https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/releases/download/v0.10.3/duckdb_cli-linux-amd64.zip

Step 3: move the duckdb file to the /usr/local/bin folder so that you can call duckdb in any path of the computer.

sudo mv duckdb /usr/local/bin

I was interested in what duckdb file really is, so I ran this command to check it:

file /usr/local/bin/duckdb

You will get this result: /usr/local/bin/duckdb: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=690a4b7267ddcc1f7584b8b12570ae8d965ae276, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, not stripped

Simply speaking, this is a file that can be executed.

Testing DuckDB on CLI

Reference

  1. DuckDB installation: https://duckdb.org/docs/installation/index?version=stable&environment=cli&platform=linux&download_method=package_manager
  2. DuckDB tutorial for beginners: https://motherduck.com/blog/duckdb-tutorial-for-beginners/

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Book notes of Science Research Writing

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This post contains the notes from reading this book: Glasman-Deal, H. (no date) Science research writing for non-native speakers of English. London Hackensack: Imperial college press Distributed by World scientific publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. Read more

LLM prompt for academic writing

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Can large language models help us improve our writing? Absolutely! But hold on—they’re not great at turning a single sentence into a fully developed paragraph; that often leads to results that miss the mark. Instead, their real power lies in refining and enhancing existing paragraphs, making your ideas clearer and more polished. For non-native researchers, this can be an invaluable tool to communicate complex thoughts with precision and confidence. Read more

Introduction to Overleaf

3 minute read

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Updates 2025/02/11 TL;DR: Using overleaf is much better than Microsoft Word (or MS Word) for academic writing that involves lots of formulas, and is very convenient for collaborative writing. UCL provides free and life-long Overleaf license.

Problems of MS Word in academic writing

  1. There are obvious differences between the desktop software of MS Word and the MS Word 365 on a browser, especially the formulas and figures.
  2. MS Word would crash if the file contains more than 100 pages, such as PhD dissertations.
  3. It is very hard to maintain lots of mathematical formulas in MS Word.
  4. It is time-consuming to change the template of MS Word. For example, IEEE journals requires two-column layout in submissions, which is a nightmare for MS Word.
  5. There is always a conflict if multiple people are simultaneously editing a Word doc via OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.
  6. etc …

Benefits of using Overleaf

  1. It is totally web-based and no installation is required.
  2. Many universities (e.g. UCL) provide free and life-long license of Overleaf, which allows many collaborators for one project.
  3. It is very easy to change the template. For example, if my paper submission to Journal A is rejected and I want to submit it to Journal B, it may take 30 minutes to change the template on Overleaf and resubmit. If I use MS Word, it might take hours or days.
  4. It has a rich text mode (see link), which resembles MS Word interface.
  5. It has functionality of “Track Changes” (see link) and “Add comments” (see link).
  6. It can be integrated with Github, Zotero, etc.
  7. There are lots of template of Overleaf. You can use it to write papers, prepare slides (using Beamer), prepare and update CVs.

Problems of using Overleaf

  1. The learning curve of Overleaf is quite steep. However, it is worthy for a four-year PhD and you don’t need to learn everything about Overleaf in one go (think about how you learn Python).
  2. As Overleaf is on a browser and depends on their server, sometimes the connection is unstable (but this is quite rare!).
  3. Some people don’t use Overleaf or resist using Overleaf. If your coauthor is one of them, you can either teach them to use Overleaf or download the Overleaf paper as MS Word document and send it to them. The latter way is really a pain, as you will maintain two versions of a paper in two different formats.

Tutorials of Overleaf

  1. UCL webpage and overleaf course at UCL: see link.
  2. 30-minute tutorial from Overleaf (link). Please note that you don’t need to learn everything about overleaf and Latex in one go. You can download an Overleaf template and write your own draft using template, and gradually learn Overleaf techniques when needed.
  3. Overleaf templates (link). Here you can find templates for UCL dissertation, Springer Nature LaTeX Template, etc. You can find more templates from Google/Github/CASA folks.
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