.. _installation:

*****************************
Installing and Building Chaco
*****************************

.. note::

    (8/28/08) This section is still incomplete.  For the time being, the most 
    up-to-date information can be found on the `ETS Wiki <http://svn.enthought.com/enthought/>`_, and,
    more specifically, the `Install pages <https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/Install>`_.

Chaco is one of the packages in the Enthought Tool Suite.  It can be installed
as part of ETS or as a separate package.  Even when it is installed as a 
standalone package, it depends on a few other packages.


Installing via EPD
===================

Chaco and the rest of ETS are installed as part of the `Enthought Python
Distribution (EPD) <http://www.enthought.com/epd>`_.  If you have installed
EPD, then you already have Chaco!

.. note::
    
   Enthought Python Distribution is free for academic and personal use, and 
   fee-based for commercial and government use.

easy_install
============

Chaco and its dependencies are available as binary eggs for Windows and Mac OS
X from the `Python Package Index <http://pypi.python.org/pypi>`_.  

Chaco depends on Numpy and either wxPython or Qt. These packages are not
installed by the default installation command. If you do not have these
packages installed, use the following command to install Chaco:

    :command:`easy_install Chaco[nonets]`

If you *do* have Numpy and either wxPython or Qt installed, you can use a 
simpler command to install Chaco:

    :command:`easy_install Chaco`

Because eggs do not distinguish between various distributions of Linux,
Enthought hosts its own egg repository for Linux eggs.  See the `ETS wiki
page on our egg repo 
<https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/Install#UsingEnthoughtsEggRepo>`_ for
instructions for installing pre-built binary eggs for your specific
distribution of Linux.

For systems that don't have binary eggs, it is also possible to build Chaco 
from source, since PyPI hosts the source tarballs for all dependencies.

.. [COMMENT]::

    Linux Native Package
    ====================

    On some supported distributions of Linux, packages are available in the native
    package format (e.g. RPM, DEB) for Chaco and the rest of ETS.

    Debian
    ------

    (TODO)

    Ubuntu
    ------

    (TODO)

    Redhat
    ------

    (TODO)

Building from Source
====================

Chaco itself is not very hard to build from source; there are only a few
C extensions and they build with most modern compilers.  Frequently the more
difficult to build piece is actually the Enable package on which Chaco 
depends.

On most platforms, in order to build Enable, you need Swig > 1.3.30 and
wxPython > 2.8.  If you are on OS X, you also need a recent Pyrex.

Obtaining the source
--------------------

You can get Chaco and its dependencies from PyPI as source tarballs, or
you can download the source directly from Enthought's Subversion server.
The URL is:

    https://svn.enthought.com/svn/enthought/Chaco/trunk

.. note:: 
   This build instructions section is currently under construction.  Please see
   the `ETS Install From Source
   <https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/Build>`_ wiki page for more
   information on building Chaco and the rest of ETS on your platform.