Rachel installation mac os x

==OS X 10.6==

The following is taken from a report from a user who installed on an OS X 10.6 machine.

Installed python_select (v. 2.7) from Macports.  Typing "python_select -l" at a terminal prompt gave:

<pre>
Code: Select all
    Available versions:
    current none python26 python26-apple python27
</pre>

In this case, the machine came with Apple Python 2.6.

Switching to python26-apple and trying to start rachel gave:

<pre>
Code: Select all
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "../rachel.2.0.4.beta/rachel.py", line 13, in <module>
        import numpy
    ImportError: No module named numpy
</pre>

Several pages on the web noted issues about 64bit/32bit difficulties. 
Some modules seem not to exist for Apple's Python, or at least the user did not know how to get them.  Most help pages end up telling you to forget Apple's Python and take the standard one and install it, e.g. with Macports. 

A number of dependencies had to be installed (py26-gtk, py26-matlibplot being the most important).  This took more than 2 hours on an Intel 2.2GHz Core2Duo with a fast internet connection.  Following this, the GUI appeared to work properly, including the graphics.  (The final test that all necessary libraries are installed is usually to load a level scheme and see that the level scheme window is drawn properly.)

Also note that usually on OS X the matplotlib back-end should be set to 'macosx'.  This is done by editing the <tt>~/.matplotlib/matplotlibrc</tt> file so that the back-end line reads

<pre>
backend : macosx
</pre>

Using fink you can install python 2.7 and the modules by calling (you might not need all of the modules below, but this worked for me)

fink install python27 setuptools-py27 matplotlib-py27 visual-py27 ipython-py27 scipy-py27