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Asked: 2026-06-18T02:30:27+00:00

I am trying to install python-scitools via ‘sudo apt-get install python-scitools’. It gives the

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I am trying to install python-scitools via ‘sudo apt-get install python-scitools’.
It gives the following output

The following extra packages will be installed:
python-matplotlib
Suggested packages:
python-excelerator python-matplotlib-doc python-traits python-wxgtk2.8octave
The following NEW packages will be installed:
python-matplotlib python-scitools
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 203 not upgraded.
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The point is that I already installed python-matplotlib manually (because I needed latest version 1.2.0).

If I tipe ‘matplotlib.path‘ in ipython, it returns

['/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/matplotlib']

My question is, How can I tell the system, matplotlib is installed?

As you guessed, I am amateur with this things.

thank you

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Installing stuff by hand vs installing via package manager do not play nice together. You can always build what ever you want on top of the packages, but you can not (easily) go the other way.

    The dependency check that apt is doing are against it’s internal database, and it rightly thinks that matplotlib is not installed. This is a feature, not a bug, as it allows the packaging system to very quickly determine if the dependencies are installed. You can probably build your own .deb to install, but that can be a bit of a hassle (as it involves understanding the debian build system).

    You might be able to install the packaged version and just make sure your hand installed version is higher is PYTHONPATH than the system one. It wastes a bit of hdd space, but meh.
    (you can set the location of the install path via setupy.py install --prefix=/path/to/where/ever).

    PYTHONPATH is an enviromental variable so you can set it using a whole slew of methods.

    PYTHONPATH=/your/path:$PYTHONPATH ipython

    will set the variable for just one process. You can also add

    PYTHONPATH=/your/path:$PYTHONPATH
export PYTHONPATH

    to your .bashrc (or .bash_profile, I always get the role of those two mixed up) which will get run every time you start a shell.

    If that does not work, you probably need to use the packaged version of matplotlib (which may require deleting your current installation of it), or installing everything you want, which depends on matplotlib, by hand.

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