Do not specify numpy>=2 and tweak install instructions

docs/source/download.rst

@@ -237,10 +237,11 @@ Firedrake has experimental support for installing using ``pip``, avoiding the ne
 Requirements
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
+* An activated virtual environment.
 * All the system requirements listed in :ref:`system-requirements`.
 * A Firedrake-compatible PETSc installation (using our `fork of PETSc <https://github.com/firedrakeproject/petsc.git>`_). The set of flags passed to PETSc can be retrieved by passing the command ``--show-petsc-configure-options`` to ``firedrake-install``.
-* `libsupermesh <https://github.com/firedrakeproject/libsupermesh.git>`_ to be installed.
-* The following environment variables to be set:
+* `libsupermesh <https://github.com/firedrakeproject/libsupermesh.git>`_ to be installed inside the virtual environment (see `here <https://github.com/firedrakeproject/firedrake/blob/master/.github/workflows/pip.yml>`_ for an example of how to do this).
+*  The following environment variables to be set:
 
   * ``PETSC_DIR`` and ``PETSC_ARCH`` to point to the correct location for the PETSc installation.
   * ``HDF5_DIR`` to ``$PETSC_DIR/$PETSC_ARCH``.
@@ -254,8 +255,6 @@ Having set up this environment, Firedrake can now be installed with the command:
 
   pip install --no-binary mpi4py,h5py git+https://github.com/firedrakeproject/firedrake.git
 
-We recommend installing Firedrake in a Python virtual environment (venv).
-
 Removing Firedrake
 ------------------
 Firedrake and its dependencies can be removed by deleting the Firedrake

pyproject.toml

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ dependencies = [
   "mpi4py",
   "h5py",
   "petsc4py",
-  "numpy>=2.0",
+  "numpy",
   "packaging",
   "pkgconfig",
   "progress",
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ requires = [
   "Cython>=3.0",
   "pybind11",
   "pkgconfig",
-  "numpy>=2.0",
+  "numpy",
   "mpi4py",
   "petsc4py",
   "rtree>=1.2",