alternative_installation.md

Alternative matplotlib installation

This is another way of installing matplotlib and other packages, but is more likely to run into problems.

Freetype and png libraries (necessary for matplotlib)

Open a terminal and type the following:

 sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/include
 sudo ln -s /usr/X11/include/freetype2/freetype /usr/local/include/freetype
 sudo ln -s /usr/X11/include/ft2build.h /usr/local/include/ft2build.h
 sudo ln -s /usr/X11/include/png.h /usr/local/include/png.h
 sudo ln -s /usr/X11/include/pngconf.h /usr/local/include/pngconf.h
 sudo ln -s /usr/X11/include/pnglibconf.h /usr/local/include/pnglibconf.h

 sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib
 sudo ln -s /usr/X11/lib/libfreetype.dylib /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.dylib
 sudo ln -s /usr/X11/lib/libpng.dylib /usr/local/lib/libpng.dylib

This puts links of these files where matplotlib looks at. The sudo command will prompt your password. If you get errors about not finding the files that you are trying to link to, this means you don't have X11 installed. You can install it from here, and then repeat these steps.

Pip

Pip is a python package manager. Install it with

 sudo easy_install pip

iPython, Numpy, Scipy

Now we can use pip to install these packages

 sudo pip install ipython
 sudo pip install numpy
 sudo pip install scipy

Matplotlib

 sudo pip install matplotlib

Note: With any of these pip packages, if you already have it installed, add an --upgrade to the end like this:

 sudo pip install matplotlib --upgrade

to make sure you have the latest version.

Also, here are online resources that you can refer to if your setup hits any unexpected problems:

• A larger stack with virtual environment
• Linking X11 method
• Homebrew method