installing numpy

[Gary Wessle]

Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> writes:

> Raymond L. Buvel wrote:
> 
> > Since you are a new Linux user, you should definitely follow Robert's
> > advice about building as an ordinary user separately from the install.
> > I sometimes take a shortcut and just do the install as user root.
> > However, I then wind up cleaning out the build directory as user root
> > (not a very safe thing to do).
> 
> For small, pure Python packages, that may be fine. numpy's build is complicated
> enough that you really, *really* want to build as a regular user.
> 
> -- 
> Robert Kern

I have read as much as I can form the python installation manual.
as a regular user, I created a personal configuration file here

****************
:~$ cat .pydistutils.cfg 
[install]
prefix=/usr/local
****************

now to build as a regular user, I am getting some errors

****************************************************************
$ cd numpy-0.9.6
$ python setup.py build
Running from numpy source directory.
Warning: not existing path in numpy/distutils: site.cfg
F2PY Version 2_2236
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 76, in ?
    setup_package()
  File "setup.py", line 63, in setup_package
    config.add_subpackage('numpy')
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/distutils/misc_util.py", line 592, in add_s                                                               ubpackage
    config_list = self.get_subpackage(subpackage_name,subpackage_path)
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/distutils/misc_util.py", line 582, in get_s                                                               ubpackage
    subpackage_path)
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/distutils/misc_util.py", line 539, in _get_                                                               configuration_from_setup_py
    config = setup_module.configuration(*args)
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/setup.py", line 10, in configuration
    config.add_subpackage('core')
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/distutils/misc_util.py", line 592, in add_s                                                               ubpackage
    config_list = self.get_subpackage(subpackage_name,subpackage_path)
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/distutils/misc_util.py", line 582, in get_s                                                               ubpackage
    subpackage_path)
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/distutils/misc_util.py", line 539, in _get_                                                               configuration_from_setup_py
    config = setup_module.configuration(*args)
  File "numpy/core/setup.py", line 11, in configuration
    from numpy.distutils.system_info import get_info, default_lib_dirs
  File "/home/fred/numpy-0.9.6/numpy/distutils/system_info.py", line 151, in ?
    so_ext = get_config_vars('SO')[0] or ''
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/distutils/sysconfig.py", line 488, in get_config_vars
    func()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/distutils/sysconfig.py", line 358, in _init_posix
    raise DistutilsPlatformError(my_msg)
distutils.errors.DistutilsPlatformError: invalid Python installation: unable to                                                                open /usr/lib/python2.4/config/Makefile (No such file or directory)