Installing STSCI_PYTHON
Macintosh and Linux Binaries
If you would like a binary install that contains all of STSCI_PYTHON, Python, Numpy, IRAF, STSDAS, etc, see the Ureka download site at http://ssb.stsci.edu/ureka/ . This software bundle most likely contains a lot of software that you do not need, but it greatly simplifies the installation process. If you choose Ureka, you give up some disk space that goes to waste, but you receive a large savings in time and aggravation.
(We no longer have the Macintosh DMG file that was available for previous versions of stsci_python. It has been replaced by Ureka.)
Source code install
STSCI_PYTHON is available from the Python Package Index as a meta-package. You can install this with easy_install or pip. Because of the confusion that sometimes arises with package names that contain dash or underline, the name of the package is "stscipython".
These instructions assume that you already have Python 2.7, Numpy, and distribute installed. If you will be installing on Linux or Macintosh, you also need pip and the compiler packages for your system.
On Linux, python and related pre-requisites are usually available through the package managers. Unfortunately, the details vary across Linux distributions and even from one version to the next, so we cannot give you instructions here. Most Linux distributions have an online forum for support.
There are a few things to watch out for, so please read the instructions below:
Installing on Linux or Macintosh using pip
To install stscipython on a Linux or Macintosh system, use these commands:
pip install stsci.distutils
pip install stscipython
You must install stsci.distutils first in a separate step.
Installing stscipython with pip will require that you have compiler packages installed on your computer.
- For Linux, this would be gcc and some collections of development packages. The details will vary for different Linux distributions.
- For Macintosh, this would be Xcode, which is available from https://developer.apple.com/xcode/ -- you do not need to use Xcode yourself, but it must be installed.
Installing on Microsoft Windows using easy_install
We provided binary distributions for 32 bit Python 2.7 on Windows. (The 32 bit Python will work on 64 bit Windows computers, but you must have 32 bit versions of both python and numpy.) To install stsci_python, type these commands into a cmd window:
c:\python27\Scripts\easy_install stsci.distutils
c:\python27\Scripts\easy_install stscipython
You must install stsci.distutils first in a separate step.
In testing, we have occasionally observed easy_install aborting with an error, either reporting network problems or sometimes no clear reason. If this happens, press the up-arrow key and enter to repeat the command. easy_install will recognize that part of the software has been installed and continue.
Downloading source code
STSCI_PYTHON is now distributed as several separate packages, so that it can more readily fit into the pypi/pip/easy_install ecosystem. You can download individual packages by searching for them on the Python Package Index.
You can also use pip to automatically download all the source code.
On Linux or Macintosh, use this command:
pip install --download . stscipython
The thing after --download is the name of the directory to download into; in this example, it is "." which is the current directory.