Re: [Matplotlib-users] how to use X11, not the "Python" app, on Mac OS X?

[Jeremy H. <je...@tu...>]

Thanks, Nadia, for the offline info. I've got to admit, installing  
something as big and dependency-ridden as Python by hand would  
probably take things way beyond my level.

I tried installing python25 via fink (BTW, I'm using Tiger, not  
Leopard), and then installing the latest ipython, numpy, scipy and  
matplotlib using the naive 'python setup.py build; sudo python  
setup.py install' method on top of that. Fink tells me that tcltk[|- 
dev|-shlibs] 8.4.13-3 are installed.

The good news is that the packages install and import, and after  
specifying backend 'TkAgg', pylab.show() opens an X-Window, not an  
Aqua window. So that confirms that X11-based libraries are being used  
at some level.

The bad news is, it segfaults immediately after the window opens.


I've also tried going the WX and GTK routes under fink's python25,  
but always hit a brick wall sooner or later, either in the  
installation (wxPython---long, nasty story) or at runtime (fink's  
pygtk-py25 installs OK, but at 'import pylab' I get a bunch of gtk  
assertion failures followed by a 'Bus Error')

Ah well.  Thanks for your help. Given how short life is, I've settled  
on the following solution:

	import matplotlib
	matplotlib.use('Pdf')
	import pylab
	...
	pylab.savefig('/tmp/blah.pdf')
	!xpdf /tmp/blah.pdf &

and then keep re-saving (and pressing 'reload' in the xpdf window)  
whenever I would normally do pylab.draw().  Some might consider this  
a nasty workaround, but I'm used to those---I've used Matlab for years.