Under the hood, Meteor is really just a bunch of files and scripts, which are designed to make the building of a web application easier. That's a terrible way to describe something so elegant, but it helps us to better understand what we're using.

After all, Mila Kunis is really just a bunch of tissue wrapped around bone, with some vital organs inside. I know you hate me now for that description, but you get the point. She's beautiful. So is Meteor. But it doesn't do us any good to just leave it at that. If we want to reproduce that type of beauty on our own, we have to understand what's really going on.

So, files and scripts… We're going to walk you through how to get the Meteor package properly installed on your Linux or Mac OS X system, and then see the package of files and scripts in action.

In this chapter, you will learn the following topics: