[Pythonmac-SIG] [Matplotlib-users] What is the recommended way of Installing MPL 0.9.8 on Leopard?

[Christopher Barker]

Charlie Moad wrote:
> I have had horrible luck with bdist_mpkg for the last several 
> months.

Do you remember what the problems were? It certainly used to work, 
though it's been a good while since I've tried.

> I did poke at the setuptools code and it looks like we just 
> won't be able to make it happy with a universal binary.  The preferred 
> extensions have ppc or i386 in them depending on your arch.

hmm -- it seems that folks are finding that re-naming them does the 
trick, so we could just re-name -- maybe even have two identical fields 
that happen to have different names -- though maybe this wouldn't fool 
easy_install and pyPi

   I think the
> best way to move forward is to just post binaries for each architecture 
> and not have a universal build.

Please, Please, Please, NO!

I really think it is very, very important to have universal binaries. We 
really want as few possibilities for what-to-install as possible.

Also, py2app is pretty much out of the question if you're processor 
dependent.

I really appreciate that you've been building Universal -- I'll see what 
I can do to help facilitate that continuing.

For what it's worth, Apple appears to be dropping PPC support for 10.6, 
so someday, this will be a non-issue (quite a ways out, though...)

Have you tried communicating with either the setuptools folks and.or the 
pyhtonmac folks that work on py2app (maybe on only Ronald now -- what 
ever happened to Bob I.?) about how to fix these issues.

> I statically compile in universal builds of libpng and freetype so 
> end-users don't have to worry about it.  I just build these by hand

What a pain -- I do wish we could get more of these support libraries 
setup so you can just call Configure with a flag -- oh well.

> the process is documented here: 
> http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/MatplotlibOSXBuildNotes

Thanks, that does look easier than other ways I've seen it done. I'm 
going to give it a try.

-Chris


-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R            (206) 526-6959   voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE   (206) 526-6329   fax
Seattle, WA  98115       (206) 526-6317   main reception

Chris.Barker at noaa.gov