PyXPlot works on most UNIX-like operating systems. We have tested it under Linux, Solaris and MacOS X, and believe that it should work on other similar POSIX systems. We regret that it is not available for Microsoft Windows, and have no plans for porting it at this time. It requires that the following software packages (not included) be installed:
LaTeX (version ; a full installation is likely to be required in distributions which offer a choice)
It is also very strongly recommended that the following software packages be installed. In each case, PyXPlot tests for the availability of these packages upon installation, and issues a warning if the package is not found. Installation can proceed, but some of PyXPlot’s features will be disabled. Once they have been added to the system, PyXPlot should be reinstalled to take advantage of their presence.
cfitsio – required for PyXPlot to be able to plot datafiles in FITS format.
Ghostview (or ggv) – required for PyXPlot to be able to display plots live on the screen; PyXPlot remains able to generate image files on disk without it. Alternatively, the set viewer command within PyXPlot allows a different PostScript viewer to be used.
gunzip – required for PyXPlot to be able to plot compressed datafiles in .gz format.
The Gnu Readline Library (version 5+) – required for PyXPlot to be able to provide tab completion and command histories in PyXPlot’s interactive command-line interface.
libkpathsea – required to efficiently find the fonts used by LaTeX.
wget – required for PyXPlot to be able to plot datafiles directly from the Internet.
Debian and Ubuntu users can find the above software in the following packages:
fftw3-dev, gcc, gs, gv, imagemagick, libc6-dev, libcfitsio3-dev,
libgsl0-dev, libkpathsea-dev, libpng12-dev, libreadline5-dev,
libxml2-dev, make, texlive-latex-extra, texlive-latex-recommended,
texlive-fonts-recommended, texlive-fonts-extra, wget, zlib1g-dev.
These packages may be installed from a command prompt by typing, all on one line:
sudo apt-get install fftw3-dev gcc gs gv imagemagick libc6-dev libcfitsio3-dev libgsl0-dev libkpathsea-dev libpng12-dev libreadline5-dev libxml2-dev make texlive-latex-extra texlive-latex-recommended texlive-fonts-extra texlive-fonts-recommended wget zlib1g-dev
Users of MacOS X can find the above software in the following MacPorts packages:
cfitsio, fftw-3, ghostscript, gsl-devel, gv, ImageMagick, libpng,
libxml2, readline-5, texlive, wget, zlib.
It may then be necessary to run the command
export C_INCLUDE_PATH=/opt/local/include
before running the configure script below.