installing numpy

[Robert Kern]

Gary Wessle wrote:
> "Raymond L. Buvel" <levub137 at wi.rr.com> writes:

>>When installing from source on a Debian system, you want the installed
>>package to wind up in /usr/local/lib/python2.x/site-packages (where x
>>represents the version of Python you are running the installer from).
>>This allows you to keep it separate from the apt managed directories and
>>allows for easy removal/upgrade.  So the command you want to execute
>>from root is
>>
>>python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local
> 
> sorry if this is boring since I am not a seasoned Linux user.
> 
> setup.py isn't located at the root, do you mean, execute the command above
> from root, as to do this
> :~$ cd /
> :/$ python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local
> or 
> :/$ python home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/setup.py install --pref...
> or AS root
> :/# python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local
> or 
> :/# python home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/setup.py install --pref...

I think he meant "as the root user". You will probably want to build numpy as a
regular user and then only install as the root user. You will probably want to
use sudo(1) to gain root privileges. You can read the sudo man-page for more
information on how to do that.

~$ cd numpy-0.9.6
~/numpy-0.9.6$ python setup.py build
~/numpy-0.9.6$ sudo python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local

However, instead of setting --prefix every time you execute setup.py for every
Python package, it will be easier for you to create the file ~/.pydistutils.cfg
with the contents

[install]
prefix=/usr/local

See http://docs.python.org/inst/config-syntax.html for more information.

Then, you can just do

~$ cd numpy-0.9.6
~/numpy-0.9.6$ python setup.py build
~/numpy-0.9.6$ sudo python setup.py install

>>By the way, to get NymPy to use the high-performance libraries, you must
>>install these libraries and the associated -dev packages before running
>>the Python install.
> 
> I wish to know the debian names for those packages, my first guess
> would be refblas3 under testing since blas is not available for
> debian/testing, there is also
> refblas3-dev  Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines 3, static library 
> which I don't have installed.
> 
> would refblas3 be all what NymPy need to the high-performance?

No. refblas3 provides the reference (unoptimized) implementation of the BLAS. In
Ubuntu (a Debian-based distribution) the package that you would want is
atlas3-base-dev. It should have a similar name in your version of Debian
(possibly atlas-dev or atlas3-dev or some other variant).

If you need more help, you will probably get more focused help on the
numpy-discussion mailing list.

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/numpy-discussion

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
 that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
 an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco