numpy or _numpy or Numeric?

[auditory]

I am a newbie here

I am trying to read "space separated floating point data" from file

I read about csv module by searching this group,
but I couldn't read space separated values with csv.
(which may be matter of course..)

I also read about numpy.fromfile(file, sep=' ') which i can use.
but on my machine(ubuntu linux) numpy is unknown module,
which I didn't install by myself.

While trying to install numpy accroding to its homepage.
(http://numpy.scipy.org/numpydoc/numdoc.htm).
i am quite confused.

it's talking about the Numerical Python,
and it says to test whether it is installed or not,
try import Numeric instead of numpy.

I got Nurmeric modules and
as a matter of fact i got a file named '_numpy.so' in lib directory.

I can import _numpy but _numpy does not have 'fromfile' method

My question is:
1. Do i need to install numpy module?
2. Then Is it different from Numeric module?
3. Then where can i get it?

4. Or what is general way to read 'space separated values' from file?

Thanks in advance.