I recommend downloading and using Ubuntu 14.04 for this workshop. You can run it either in a virtual machine or on your primary hardware.
To install opencv, you can do it yourself following the quick start guide at opencv.org(http://docs.opencv.org/trunk/doc/tutorials/introduction/linux_install/linux_install.html) or you can try an use the script provided(opencv.sh).
After running the script, you'll need to do these last few steps:
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sudo touch /etc/ld.so.conf.d/opencv.conf write '/usr/local/lib' to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/opencv.conf
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sudo ldconfig
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sudo touch /etc/bash.bash.rc write 'PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig export PKG_CONFIG_PATH' to /etc/bash.bash.rc
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sudo reboot
Now you should be able to use open cv with python!