Installing PyMSES

Requirements

PyMSES has some Core dependencies plus some Recommended dependencies you might need to install to enable all PyMSES features.

The developpment team strongly recommends the user to install the EPD (Enthought Python Distribution) which wraps all these dependencies into a single, highly-portable package.

Core dependencies

These packages are mandatory to use the basic functionality of PyMSES:

• a gcc-compatible C compiler,
• GNU make and friends,
• Python, version 2.x (not 3.x), including developement headers (Python.h and such), python 2.6.x or later is recommended to use some multiprocessing speed up.
• Python packages:
  • numpy, version 1.2 or later
  • scipy
• iPython is not strictly required, but it makes the interactive experience so much better you will certainly want to install it.

Recommended dependencies

Those packages are recommended for general use (plotting, easy input and output, image processing, GUI, ...). Some PyMSES features may be unavailable without them:

• matplotlib for plotting
• the Python Imaging Library (PIL) for Image processing
• HDF5 and PyTables for Python HDF5 support
• wxPython for the AMRViewer GUI
• mpi4py if you want to use the MPI library on a large parallel system.

Delevoper dependencies

You will need this if you intend to work on the source code, or if you obtained PyMSES for an unpackaged version (i.e. a tarball of the mercurial repository, or hg clone)

• mercurial for source code management
• Cython
• sphinx for generating the documentation

Installation instructions

For now, the easiest way to install PyMSES from a tarball is:

1. Extract the tarball into a directory, say ~/codes/pymses
2. Run make in the directory
3. Add the make directory to your PYTHONPATH
4. Optional : Add the pymses/bin to your PATH, to quickly start the GUI with the amrviewer command or to launch basic scripts.

For example, using the bash shell:

$ cd  ~/codes
$ tar -xvfz pymses-3.0.0.tar.gz
$ cd pymses_3.0.0
$ make
$ export PYTHONPATH=~/codes/pymses_3.0.0:$PYTHONPATH
$ export PATH=$PATH:~/codes/pymses_3.0.0/bin

Note that you will need to place the export statements in your ~/.bashrc or equivalent to set your PYTHONPATH and PATH for all future shell sessions.