[Pythonmac-SIG] Compiling Scipy/available binaries for Universal Python 2.4?

[Teemu Rinne]

Hi,

>From my perspective (very limited skills&resources for understanding python
details, backends, compiling sources and such scary things), I would like
to  add to the archives my success story using pythonmac.org/packages.

Context:
Mac Pro (intel) and several G5s (will try my G4 powerbook soon)
python 2.4, numpy, matplotlib (basic plotting with TkAgg), scipy
(filtering)[, rpy (interface to R)]

Installing python2.4, numpy, and matplotlib from pythonmac packages was a
pleasure. Thank you!

I found that the current scipy package is outdated (error message something
like: RuntimeError: module compiled against  version XXXXXX of C-API but
this version of numpy is YYYYYY ) but, fortunately, it was quite easy  to
compile scipy from sources after I had installed the other binary packages. 

I started the process from scratch on clean systems (reinstalled tiger on
old systems). 

This is what I did:
-installed the latest XCode tools+SDK
-installed pythonmac.org/packages (not scipy)
-installed fortran 
from http://www.macresearch.org/files/gfortran/gfortranCompleteInstaller.mpkg.zip (I
added a link to /usr/bin/gfortran pointing to /usr/local/bin/gfortran )
-added ~/.pydistutils.cfg (as explained in pythonmac.org/wiki/FAQ) 
-downloaded scipy sources (www.scipy.org, 0.5.2) and compiled&installed
scipy using sudo /usr/local/bin/python setup.py install (i.e., using python
2.4 installed from pythonmac packages)


This works ok for the things I want to do. Scipy.test(10) (Ran 1610 tests
in 40.736s) complains about several things (e.g., importing umfpack,
clapack, cblas, complex numbers) but this does not seem to matter. I don't
know about wxPython.


I would be more than happy to contribute to pythonmac packages. But I would
have to solve these issues:
(1) Is my scipy build (Intel, G5) ok for general distribution? I have no
idea.
(2) How to make pythonmac packages. This seems like a faq but seems that
finding relevant information requires some time&effort as there seems to be
several different packaging approaches etc. It would be great to have
step-by-step instructions to get started. 


Cheers,

Teemu Rinne
Dept Psychology
Univ Helsinki, Finland