Installation Instructions

These instructions are for Linux-based systems. If you're using OSX, see the OSX installation instructions.

(see also: http://yt.enzotools.org/doc/getting_started.html)

Automated Script

I've written a script that does its best to download and install all the necessary dependencies of yt. If you check out a copy of the installation script: 

svn export http://svn.enzotools.org/yt/branches/yt-1.0/doc/install_script.sh

you can then edit it and set the root directory tree you wish to build and install into as the YT_DIR parameter. You can then run it, and it'll go off on its merry way installing into YT_DIR. If the installation is successful, it will print out the needed information for running yt.

Note that if you are having trouble with the wxPython installation, you should feel free to comment out the relevant sections of the installation script, as it is completely optional'''

Installing Manually

Every effort has been made to reduce yt to the smallest number of dependencies. However, there are certain dependencies which are unavoidable.

Hard Dependencies

  • HDF5 1.6 - if you have enzo, you likely have this
  • Python 2.5
  • NumPy
  • MatPlotLib - Be sure to get either (maintenance) version 0.91.4, or at least 0.98.2. 0.98.0 and 0.98.1 will not work with phase plots!

Optional Dependencies

  • PyTables - You should get this unless you only deal with small datasets ( fewer than 2000 grids ) as it serializes some types of data about the hierarchy and projections between instances
  • wxPython Optional, for using the GUI, Reason -- see installation instructions below
  • PyHDF_NP Optional, for using HDF4-based datasets -- you almost certainly don't need this.

Installing wxPython

The installation instructions for wxPython on the wxPython website are a bit complicated, and designed for a more robust build process than we want. It should be something like the following: 

cd wxPython-src-2.8.7.1
./configure --prefix=$MY_DIR/ --with-opengl
make install
cd contrib
make install
cd ../wxPython/
$MY_DIR/bin/python2.5 setup.py

Installing YT

You can either check out the bleeding-edge repository: 

svn co http://svn.enzotools.org/yt/trunk yt
cd yt
echo LOCATION_TO_HDF5 > hdf5.cfg
python2.5 setup.py install

Or the current release version, which is in maintenance and stability mode: 

svn co http://svn.enzotools.org/yt/branches/yt-1.0/
cd yt-1.0
echo LOCATION_TO_HDF5 > hdf5.cfg
python2.5 setup.py install

Orion Users

Check out the yt-generalization branch: 

svn co http://svn.enzotools.org/yt/branches/yt-generalization/
cd yt-generalization
echo LOCATION_TO_HDF5 > hdf5.cfg
python2.5 setup.py install