[Python-modules-team] welcome ipython01x* packages with notebooks for Debian systems

Yaroslav Halchenko yoh at dartmouth.edu
Sat Oct 1 02:04:15 UTC 2011


First of all I would like to express my apologies

 1. to the maintainers of the official ipython package in Debian:

  $> zgrep '^ --' ~doc/ipython/changelog.Debian.gz | awk '{print $2, $3}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
     29 Norbert Tretkowski
     10 Jack Moffitt
      7 Bernd Zeimetz
      5 Julian Taylor
      3 Stephan Peijnik
      2 Matthias Klose
      1 Wichert Akkerman
      1 Steven R.
      1 Piotr Ozarowski
      1 Marco Presi
      1 Joerg Jaspert

    for my cruel actions and torturing of the packaging.

 2. to Fernando for finally doing something what he refused to do, i.e.
    giving this backward incompatible version of IPython
    some versioning suffix in its name for a right to co-exist with 0.10 ;)

This package is intended for Debian users who would like to experiment with an
upcoming version (0.12 or 0.2?) of IPython without interference with their
stock system-wide installation of  IPython.  ipython01x* packages should
install a current git snapshot of ipython (0.11+511-g039e00a) with notebooks
support into a "hidden" namespace without any conflict with official ipython
Debian package.

Packages built fine for Debian releases (squeeze, wheezy, sid), failed for any
Ubuntu for some build-dependency reason although I think I have provided all
needed backports (interested parties are welcome to report what was wrong
and submit a reasonable patch).  

Packages are available from http://neuro.debian.net repository, while
custom-not-intended-to-survive git repository with packaging is available from
https://github.com/yarikoptic/ipython01x although there is not much fun in
there.  

So, if you have already apt sources files/lines for neurodebian and run
Debian just do

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install ipython01x
  sudo apt-get install python-zmq python-matplotlib # forgotten to add needed here depends
  ipython01x notebook --pylab=inline
  # mention that it needs python-tornado 2.1.0 which is also available

and point your browser to http://127.0.0.1:8888 (you would need a
browser with WebSocket support, e.g. chromium or firefox/iceweasel
6. "Firefox 4 and 5 are also supported by you have to enable
WebSockets in about:config.")

For now, since not yet packaged, mathjax is not shipped along so
gets accessed from mathjax.org at "runtime"

Otherwise -- it seems to work and indeed quite fun.  For a quick review of what
I am talking about see
http://lighthouseinthesky.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-ipython-notebooks.html

Disclaimer:  since this is not an official package support is at the
  level of "it works for me".  If you run into an obvious problem with
  ipython -- check and report on
  https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/ .

P.S. Internally package places IPython module as a submodule for
  IPython01X, __init__.py of which adjusts sys.path and PYTHONPATH
  environment so subsequent imports of IPython take this development
  version of IPython instead of any other available.  evil and ugly but
  seems to work

Enjoy,
-- 
Yaroslav O. Halchenko
Postdoctoral Fellow,   Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834                       Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419
WWW:   http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik        



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