This is a post that will interest 0% of my usual blog readers, but I’m hoping that it will save some wandering Googlers much frustration.
Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6) comes with Python and NumPy already installed, which is great—except that the versions it comes with aren’t compatible with SciPy. I’ve spent several hours Googling around, trying to build things from source, etc. with no luck. Lots of people have had this problem. Turns out the solution is actually very simple. While I can’t claim credit for it, I can elaborate a bit:
- Run the Python 2.6.4 installer. Yes, that really is the version you want. Trust me.
- Run the NumPy 1.3.0 installer.
- Run the SciPy 0.7.1 installer.
One more thing: The version of Python that came with your system (2.6.1 in /usr/bin) will still be around, and won’t have access to SciPy! What you want to do is run the new version from /usr/local/bin. To verify this, try the command import scipy from each shell.
May you enjoy doing science the Python way as much as I do.
This made my life so much easier.