Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
 
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Hi,
I'm interested to know why the pip package manager is not more widely supported for installation of python packages like matplotlib? Matplotlib seems to be particularly slowly updated in the Fedora repositories, for example, so I often find that a source installation is necessary. I know this isn't especially difficult for the experienced user, but surely using something like pip would make this process for accessible for all users of python packages, particularly those that do not receive much attention from the big distribution maintainers? Yet, pip doesn't get a mention on the installation documentation of matplotlib or many other python packs. I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this matter. Many Thanks, Mat --
Institute for Energy Systems School of Engineering The University of Edinburgh Faraday Building The King’s Buildings Edinburgh EH9 3JL Tel: +44 (0)131 650 5570 School fax: +44 (0)131 650 6554 [hidden email] http://www.see.ed.ac.uk The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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One of the reasons (historically) is
that the build scripts predate setuptools and ships copies of
dependencies rather than using easy_install or pip to install
them. There is an open PR to address this here:
https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/1454 But you do make a good point that `pip` should be mentioned in the docs as part of that change. Mike On 11/16/2012 05:54 AM, Mathew Topper wrote: Hi, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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Thanks Mike, that's good to know. Will packages dependant on
matplotlib (I'm thinking of basemap) be encouraged to follow suit? I
know that python package management is a massive headache for our
system maintainers here, and any simplification would be gratefully
received.
Cheers, Mat On 16/11/12 13:59, Michael Droettboom wrote:
--
Institute for Energy Systems School of Engineering The University of Edinburgh Faraday Building The King’s Buildings Edinburgh EH9 3JL Tel: +44 (0)131 650 5570 School fax: +44 (0)131 650 6554 [hidden email] http://www.see.ed.ac.uk The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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In reply to this post by Mathew Topper
In article <[hidden email]>,
Mathew Topper <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm interested to know why the pip package manager is not more widely > supported for installation of python packages like matplotlib? > Matplotlib seems to be particularly slowly updated in the Fedora > repositories, for example, so I often find that a source installation is > necessary. I know this isn't especially difficult for the experienced > user, but surely using something like pip would make this process for > accessible for all users of python packages, particularly those that do > not receive much attention from the big distribution maintainers? Yet, > pip doesn't get a mention on the installation documentation of > matplotlib or many other python packs. > > I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this matter. Unfortunately pip cannot install binaries, so any user that tried to install matplotlib using pip would have to have a C compiler. Unfortunately many users do not have a compiler on MacOS and Windows. In addition, matplotlib has some important dependencies that may not be available on all systems. MacOS now includes all necessary libraries. I don't think that is true for most flavors linux (though there is probably an easy way to get all missing packages). I have no idea about Windows. I agree pip should be mentioned, but I don't see it as a viable mainstream means of installing matplotlib. (Does it even work with matplotlib? I've never tried it.) -- Russell ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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On Nov 16, 2012, at 2:25PM, Russell E. Owen wrote: > In article <[hidden email]>, > Mathew Topper <[hidden email]> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I'm interested to know why the pip package manager is not more widely >> supported for installation of python packages like matplotlib? >> Matplotlib seems to be particularly slowly updated in the Fedora >> repositories, for example, so I often find that a source installation is >> necessary. I know this isn't especially difficult for the experienced >> user, but surely using something like pip would make this process for >> accessible for all users of python packages, particularly those that do >> not receive much attention from the big distribution maintainers? Yet, >> pip doesn't get a mention on the installation documentation of >> matplotlib or many other python packs. >> >> I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this matter. > > Unfortunately pip cannot install binaries, so any user that tried to > install matplotlib using pip would have to have a C compiler. > > Unfortunately many users do not have a compiler on MacOS and Windows. > > In addition, matplotlib has some important dependencies that may not be > available on all systems. MacOS now includes all necessary libraries. I > don't think that is true for most flavors linux (though there is > probably an easy way to get all missing packages). I have no idea about > Windows. > > I agree pip should be mentioned, but I don't see it as a viable > mainstream means of installing matplotlib. > > (Does it even work with matplotlib? I've never tried it.) > > -- Russell pip is the only method I have used in my Linux work. -Sterling > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single > web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, > SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. > Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov > _______________________________________________ > Matplotlib-users mailing list > [hidden email] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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In reply to this post by Mathew Topper
Hi Russell,
On Friday 16 November 2012 at 2:25 PM, Russell Owen wrote:
This is true, and an important advantage of the binary installer [1]. However, I would venture that most scientific users will have installed a compiler (at least on the Mac) - even accidentally, due to all the complicated installation procedures for many scientific software packages :-)
Pip works beautifully on the Mac since Lion, once you install pkg-config. This allows matplotlib to pick up the dependencies from the system (i.e. libpng, libfreetype and zlib). My shortest suggested route to Matplotlib on Lion is (assuming you have Homebrew installed):
brew install pkg-config sudo pip install matplotlib The problem with pip / easy_install is that a lot of people assume that this is the standard way to install Python packages. I don't blame them - in fact, I would want all packages to be compatible with pip. It's not the greatest tool, given the pretty sorry state of Python packaging, but it is pretty much the simplest option from the command line. Best regards, Ludwig [1] For me the only downside of the installer is the use of Python.org Python instead of the default "system" Python, as the latter makes more sense to me for a standard installation (and avoids having multiple Pythons on your system, which is a Good Thing). Python.org Python used to be a mandatory install on older Mac systems such as Tiger / 10.3, but this is no longer a compelling argument for me on newer systems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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In reply to this post by Mathew Topper
Mathew Topper wrote:
> Hi, > > I'm interested to know why the pip package manager is not more widely > supported for installation of python packages like matplotlib? > Matplotlib seems to be particularly slowly updated in the Fedora > repositories, for example, so I often find that a source installation is > necessary. I know this isn't especially difficult for the experienced > user, but surely using something like pip would make this process for > accessible for all users of python packages, particularly those that do > not receive much attention from the big distribution maintainers? Yet, > pip doesn't get a mention on the installation documentation of > matplotlib or many other python packs. > > I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this matter. > > Many Thanks, > > Mat It is dangerous to use pip on fedora, it may result in your next attempt to update the system failing horribly. If you use it, try to install with --user. Unfortunately, this often won't work because pip will then complain when attempting to remove a system version of some dep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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Hi Neal,
Is that due to conflicting package versions? I haven't suffered any particular issues like this yet, but it seems to me that pip would be improved if it interacted better with the environment it was in. How hard would it be to get pip to interact with yum and apt, for instance, to get valid binaries and/or devel files? I can't help thinking that Latex packaging is very similar, in that linux distributions often struggle to keep up, which I guess is why TexLive started. And then to complicate matters further, our sys admin said he didn't like pip as he would rather generate RPMs, in order that there is not a lot of work to do for system rebuilds in our labs. I found pypi2rpm, but that looks pretty bleeding edge and I think I'm getting out of my depth as a humble scientist. Mat On 19/11/12 12:59, Neal Becker wrote: Mathew Topper wrote:Hi, I'm interested to know why the pip package manager is not more widely supported for installation of python packages like matplotlib? Matplotlib seems to be particularly slowly updated in the Fedora repositories, for example, so I often find that a source installation is necessary. I know this isn't especially difficult for the experienced user, but surely using something like pip would make this process for accessible for all users of python packages, particularly those that do not receive much attention from the big distribution maintainers? Yet, pip doesn't get a mention on the installation documentation of matplotlib or many other python packs. I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this matter. Many Thanks, MatIt is dangerous to use pip on fedora, it may result in your next attempt to update the system failing horribly. If you use it, try to install with --user. Unfortunately, this often won't work because pip will then complain when attempting to remove a system version of some dep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users --
Institute for Energy Systems School of Engineering The University of Edinburgh Faraday Building The King’s Buildings Edinburgh EH9 3JL Tel: +44 (0)131 650 5570 School fax: +44 (0)131 650 6554 [hidden email] http://www.see.ed.ac.uk The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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The problem is that pip packages something as a dir where easy_install packages as a file, or vice-versa. Then when you update, cpio will fail (doesn't know how to replace a dir with a file, or vice-versa). Next, the entire installation will abort!!!! Leaving you with a mess.
I understand it's possible to manually then fix this mess using (some obscure) yum incantations, but I don't recall what. Usually at this point I wipe the disc. This has happened to me multiple times on multiple machines, and was discussed at some length on fedora-dev list maybe 1 year ago. The basic message was that I shouldn't use pip to install into the system dirs. But even using pip --user is not answer, because pip will see that e.g., matplotlib wants a newer version of pytz, and will attempt to remove the system pytz (and fail and abort).
The only reliable approach is virtualenv. Not really very satisfactory. On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Mathew Topper <[hidden email]> wrote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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Neal, thanks for the warning. I found the thread of your discussion
here actually:
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-February/162496.html It's very interesting. My feeling would be that a PyPI fedora repository would make the most sense - much like the current Fedora TexLive2012 testing repository - but obviously this is no small job. "python setup.py install" doesn't have similar issues, I take it? Mat On 20/11/12 11:40, Neal Becker wrote: The problem is that pip packages something as a dir where easy_install packages as a file, or vice-versa. Then when you update, cpio will fail (doesn't know how to replace a dir with a file, or vice-versa). Next, the entire installation will abort!!!! Leaving you with a mess. --
Institute for Energy Systems School of Engineering The University of Edinburgh Faraday Building The King’s Buildings Edinburgh EH9 3JL Tel: +44 (0)131 650 5570 School fax: +44 (0)131 650 6554 [hidden email] http://www.see.ed.ac.uk The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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python setup.py install won't cause that issue.
Also, easy_install doesn't cause the same issue. OTOH, I'm not sure what easy_install does in the case of deps. If you use pip install --user it will try (and fail) to remove old versions of deps from system. I don't know what easy_install does in this case.
I have also had issues where python setup.py install will install everything into /usr/lib, while fedora packaging will try to install arch-dep parts under e.g., /usr/lib64. I have many times wound up with 2 versions of things that way.
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 7:04 AM, Mathew Topper <[hidden email]> wrote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
Re: Why is pip not mentioned in the Installation Documentation?
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In reply to this post by Ludwig Schwardt-2
In article <[hidden email]>,
Ludwig Schwardt <[hidden email]> wrote: > Pip works beautifully on the Mac since Lion, once you install pkg-config. > This allows matplotlib to pick up the dependencies from the system (i.e. > libpng, libfreetype and zlib).... I had not heard of pkg-config before. It looks very useful. >... > [1] For me the only downside of the installer is the use of Python.org Python > instead of the default "system" Python, as the latter makes more sense to me > for a standard installation (and avoids having multiple Pythons on your > system, which is a Good Thing). Python.org Python used to be a mandatory > install on older Mac systems such as Tiger / 10.3, but this is no longer a > compelling argument for me on newer systems. Simplicity is nice, and it's a shame there are so many 3rd party versions of python now (python.org, Enthought, ActiveState). Nonetheless, there are some good reasons for avoiding system python, including: - Apple rarely updates system python, so one does not get bug fixes - If the operating system uses python for anything then it's safest to leave it alone Regards, -- Russell ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users |
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