This document describes the steps required to install IPython. IPython is organized into a number of subpackages, each of which has its own dependencies. All of the subpackages come with IPython, so you don’t need to download and install them separately. However, to use a given subpackage, you will need to install all of its dependencies.
Please let us know if you have problems installing IPython or any of its dependencies. Officially, IPython requires Python version 2.5 or 2.6. We have not yet started to port IPython to Python 3.0.
Warning
Officially, IPython supports Python versions 2.5 and 2.6.
IPython 0.10 has only been well tested with Python 2.5 and 2.6. Parts of it may work with Python 2.4, but we do not officially support Python 2.4 anymore. If you need to use 2.4, you can still run IPython 0.9.
Some of the installation approaches use the setuptools package and its easy_install command line program. In many scenarios, this provides the most simple method of installing IPython and its dependencies. It is not required though. More information about setuptools can be found on its website.
More general information about installing Python packages can be found in Python’s documentation at http://www.python.org/doc/.
If you have setuptools installed and you are on OS X or Linux (not Windows), the following will download and install IPython and the main optional dependencies:
$ easy_install ipython[kernel,security,test]
This will get Twisted, zope.interface and Foolscap, which are needed for IPython’s parallel computing features as well as the nose package, which will enable you to run IPython’s test suite. To run IPython’s test suite, use the iptest command:
$ iptest
Read on for more specific details and instructions for Windows.
Given a properly built Python, the basic interactive IPython shell will work with no external dependencies. However, some Python distributions (particularly on Windows and OS X), don’t come with a working readline module. The IPython shell will work without readline, but will lack many features that users depend on, such as tab completion and command line editing. See below for details of how to make sure you have a working readline.
If you have setuptools installed, the easiest way of getting IPython is to simple use easy_install:
$ easy_install ipython
That’s it.
If you don’t want to use easy_install, or don’t have it installed, just grab the latest stable build of IPython from here. Then do the following:
$ tar -xzf ipython.tar.gz
$ cd ipython
$ python setup.py install
If you are installing to a location (like /usr/local) that requires higher permissions, you may need to run the last command with sudo.
There are a few caveats for Windows users. The main issue is that a basic python setup.py install approach won’t create .bat file or Start Menu shortcuts, which most users want. To get an installation with these, you can use any of the following alternatives:
IPython by default runs in a termninal window, but the normal terminal application supplied by Microsoft Windows is very primitive. You may want to download the excellent and free Console application instead, which is a far superior tool. You can even configure Console to give you by default an IPython tab, which is very convenient to create new IPython sessions directly from the working terminal.
It is also possible to install the development version of IPython from our Bazaar source code repository. To do this you will need to have Bazaar installed on your system. Then just do:
$ bzr branch lp:ipython
$ cd ipython
$ python setup.py install
Again, this last step on Windows won’t create .bat files or Start Menu shortcuts, so you will have to use one of the other approaches listed above.
Some users want to be able to follow the development branch as it changes. If you have setuptools installed, this is easy. Simply replace the last step by:
$ python setupegg.py develop
This creates links in the right places and installs the command line script to the appropriate places. Then, if you want to update your IPython at any time, just do:
$ bzr pull
There are a number of basic optional dependencies that most users will want to get. These are:
If you are comfortable installing these things yourself, have at it, otherwise read on for more details.
In principle, all Python distributions should come with a working readline module. But, reality is not quite that simple. There are two common situations where you won’t have a working readline module:
On OS X, the built-in Python doesn’t not have readline because of license issues. Starting with OS X 10.5 (Leopard), Apple’s built-in Python has a BSD-licensed not-quite-compatible readline replacement. As of IPython 0.9, many of the issues related to the differences between readline and libedit seem to have been resolved. While you may find libedit sufficient, we have occasional reports of bugs with it and several developers who use OS X as their main environment consider libedit unacceptable for productive, regular use with IPython.
Therefore, we strongly recommend that on OS X you get the full readline module. We will not consider completion/history problems to be bugs for IPython if you are using libedit.
To get a working readline module, just do (with setuptools installed):
$ easy_install readline
Note
Other Python distributions on OS X (such as fink, MacPorts and the official python.org binaries) already have readline installed so you likely don’t have to do this step.
If needed, the readline egg can be build and installed from source (see the wiki page at http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/InstallationOSXLeopard).
On Windows, you will need the PyReadline module. PyReadline is a separate, Windows only implementation of readline that uses native Windows calls through ctypes. The easiest way of installing PyReadline is you use the binary installer available here. The ctypes module, which comes with Python 2.5 and greater, is required by PyReadline. It is available for Python 2.4 at http://python.net/crew/theller/ctypes.
To run the IPython test suite you will need the nose package. Nose provides a great way of sniffing out and running all of the IPython tests. The simplest way of getting nose, is to use easy_install:
$ easy_install nose
Another way of getting this is to do:
$ easy_install ipython[test]
For more installation options, see the nose website. Once you have nose installed, you can run IPython’s test suite using the iptest command:
$ iptest
The IPython kernel provides a nice architecture for parallel computing. The main focus of this architecture is on interactive parallel computing. These features require a number of additional packages:
On a Unix style platform (including OS X), if you want to use setuptools, you can just do:
$ easy_install ipython[kernel] # the first three
$ easy_install ipython[security] # pyOpenSSL
Twisted [Twisted] and zope.interface [ZopeInterface] are used for networking related things. On Unix style platforms (including OS X), the simplest way of getting the these is to use easy_install:
$ easy_install zope.interface
$ easy_install Twisted
Of course, you can also download the source tarballs from the Twisted website and the zope.interface page at PyPI and do the usual python setup.py install if you prefer.
Windows is a bit different. For zope.interface and Twisted, simply get the latest binary .exe installer from the Twisted website. This installer includes both zope.interface and Twisted and should just work.
Foolscap [Foolscap] uses Twisted to provide a very nice secure RPC protocol that we use to implement our parallel computing features.
On all platforms a simple:
$ easy_install foolscap
should work. You can also download the source tarballs from the Foolscap website and do python setup.py install if you prefer.
IPython requires an older version of pyOpenSSL [pyOpenSSL] (0.6 rather than the current 0.7). There are a couple of options for getting this:
Starting with IPython 0.9, IPython has a new IPython.frontend package that has a nice wxPython based IPython GUI. As you would expect, this GUI requires wxPython. Most Linux distributions have wxPython packages available and the built-in Python on OS X comes with wxPython preinstalled. For Windows, a binary installer is available on the wxPython website.
| [Twisted] | Twisted matrix. http://twistedmatrix.org |
| [ZopeInterface] | http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zope.interface |
| [Foolscap] | Foolscap network protocol. http://foolscap.lothar.com/trac |
| [pyOpenSSL] | pyOpenSSL. http://pyopenssl.sourceforge.net |