2.2 System requirements

Pyxplot depends on the following software packages, which are not included in the source tarball:

• fftw (version 2 or, preferably, 3+)

• gcc and make

• Ghostscript

• The Gnu Scientific Library (version 1.10+)

• ImageMagick

• latex (version ; a full installation is likely to be required in distributions which offer a choice)

• libpng (version 1.2+)

• libxml2 (version 2.6+)

• zlib

It is very strongly recommended that the following software packages also be installed:

• cfitsio – required for Pyxplot to be able to plot data files 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 data files 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 data files directly from the Internet.

In the case of the recommended packages, Pyxplot tests for the availability of each when it is installed and issues a warning if any are not found. Installation can proceed, but some of Pyxplot’s features will be disabled. If they are later added to the system, Pyxplot should be reinstalled to take advantage of their presence.