Re: [Matplotlib-users] Having trouble installing matplotlib on Mac OS X Lion

[Russell E. O. <ro...@uw...>]

In article <CA65B53A.23941%wcc...@lb...>,
 Bill Carithers <wcc...@lb...> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I had matplotlib-0.99.1.1 working with Python 2.6 on OS X v10.6(Snow
> Leopard). Today I upgraded to Lion (v10.7) and matplotlib had disappeared.
> Lion ships with Apple¹s version of Python 2.7. Even when I look back at
> Python 2.6 in the /System/Library/Frameworks/Python/Version/Python2.6, it
> seems to be gone. OK, I thought I would install matplotlib-1.0.1 in Python
> 2.7 using easy_install. It failed when unable to find the headers for numpy
> (terminal output below). Lion comes with numpy 1.5.1 pre-installed. I tried
> re-installing numpy but that didn¹t help so now I¹m stuck.
> 
> Any suggestions?

I personally would not try to mess with Apple's python. It's safer to 
leave it alone, and it is not upgrade very often.

My personal favorite option:
- install python.org's python
- install the official binary installers for numpy and matplotlib (both 
of which assume python.org's python)

You can use other standard distributions of Python including:
- fink
- MacPorts
- Enthought's python distribution
most or all of these come with their own versions of numpy and 
matplotlib (though in the case of fink and MacPorts you have to 
explicitly install them).

-- Russell