[Visualpython-users] vpython install on Slackware10, numarray instead of Numeric

[Eric A. <Ay...@ma...>]

I've installed visual 3.1 on my Slackware 10.0 boxes, and gotten it to 
work! Here are some tricks I had to use, just in case someone else is 
running into problems doing the same on a stock Slackware x86 install.

Please note: this is what I DID. I'm sure there may be a better way to 
do it, as I'm still a relative newbie to linux; but this worked.

After a "install everything" Slackware install (from CD):
	install gtkglarea
		download gtkglarea-1.2.2.tar.gz from Twocows.
		$ tar -xzf gtkglarea-1.2.2.tar.gz
		$ cd gtkglarea-1.2.2/
		$ ./configure
		$ make
		$ sudo make install
		$ make clean
	install numarray (successful installation of Numeric on Slackware has 
so far eluded me.)
		download numarray-1.1.1.tar.gz from SourceForge
		$ tar -xzf numarray-1.1.1.tar.gz
		$ cd numarray-1.1.1/
		$ sudo python setup.py install
	get boost-jam
		download boost-jam-3.1.10-1-linuxx86.tgz from SourceForge
		$ tar -xzf boost-jam...
	install boost libraries
		download boost_1_32_0.tar.gz from SourceForge
		$ tar -xzf boost_1_32...
		$ cd boost_1_32_0/
		$ sudo ../boost-jam.../bjam -sTOOLS=gcc -sPYTHON_ROOT=/usr \
			-sPYTHON_VERSION=2.3 install
		At this point, you may want to make a cup of coffee. If you have a 
slow machine, start with a coffee-plant seedling.
		$ cd /usr/local/lib/
		$ sudo ln -s libboost_python-gcc-mt-1_32.so 
/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.so
	install vpython
		Download visual-3.1.0.tar.gz (SourceForge again)
		$ tar -xzf visual-3.1.0.tar.gz
		$ cd visual-3.1.0/
		$ CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include/boost-1_32
		$ export CPPFLAGS
		$ LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib
		$ export LDFLAGS
		$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
		$ make
		$ sudo make install
		$ make clean

There are still a couple configuration problems to clean up, though. 
For some reason, the vpython startup shell script doesn't know where 
things are, yet. I edited it to hard-code the directories:
	edit /usr/bin/vpython
		change "@visualdemodir@" to 
"/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/visual/examples"
		change "@visualidledir@" to "/usr/bin"
		change "@IDLE@" to "idle"
There is undoubtedly a better way to go about this. Probably I needed 
to set something on the configure step of the vpython installation, but 
I don't know what and this worked. (Suggestions?)
		
There is just one more problem, which will show up if (like me) you've 
been unable to install Numeric.
The module primitives.py 
(/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/visual/primitives.py) still tries to 
import Numeric, even after the module(s) that import primitives.py go 
through a bit of trouble to determine whether you have Numeric or not. 
This should probably be fixed in a future revision: for now I got 
around it by changing "Numeric" to "numarray" in line 10 of 
primitives.py.

Thanks to Jonathan Brandmeyer for his help, and I hope this summary is 
of use to someone...

-EA

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Eric Ayars
Assistant Professor of Physics
California State University, Chico
ay...@ma...