Quick Python Module Instructions

Some of the tools on this site use Python, and some, in particular brainhull, use the numpy extension to Python. To install a python module one generally unpacks the tarball and runs the setup script like so:

tar -xzvf numpy-1.0.tgz
cd numpy-1.0
python setup.py install

This works if you have root access, but you can also install into your home directory:

python setup.py install --home=~

In this case you will also have to set an environment variable in your .bashrc to tell Python where the new module is:

export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/lib/python

Note that the directory named above may be lib, or lib64, or something else, depending on the architecture of your machine; you'll have to check where the setup script actually installed things. If you get stuck, try

python setup.py install --help