Here are some notes on my process of installing PyDStool on Linux Gentoo:

My hardware is an off-the-shelf Dell P4 3.20GHz, running kernel 2.4.28 (don't ask why not 2.6 - it's painful) in Hyperthreading SMP mode. The system has 1GB RAM.

For those who are not familiar with Gentoo, it is a source based linux distro. Everything gets downloaded and compiled locally - and you get to optimize for *YOUR* CPU, and to remove support for things that you don't like. For example, I don't like Gnome and KDE - they are too bloated - so I compile with all KDE support removed, and Gnome support enabled without Gnome installed. The package manager for gentoo is called Portage, and is written in python. It is the only distro I ever used that managed to upgrade libc without breaking itself in half.

The desktop environment I use is [ xfce4]. It is full featured, yet lightweight. Since tool interdependency is discouraged in xfce, you can run only the parts you like.

I work remotely using vnc over an ssh tunnel. This allows me all the comforts of home or a cafe while working on my fancy office machine.

The relevant Portage e-Build versions I used are:

• dev-lang/python-2.3.4-r1

• dev-python/f2py-2.39.235.1693

• dev-python/wxpython-2.4.2.4

• dev-python/numeric-23.1

• dev-python/numarray-0.8

• dev-python/pygtk-2.4.1

• dev-python/matplotlib-0.64

• sci-libs/atlas-3.4.2

• sci-libs/lapack-3.0

• media-gfx/gnuplot-4.0-r1

Sadly, scipy does not have an e-build. If there is any interest, I might put one together (it's pretty easy, unlike RPM). I used the scipy complete tarball version 0.3.2

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Things that were broken and got fixed thanks to RobClewley:

1. References to mingw causes errors. Replacing all of them with gcc worked fine

2. A missing icon caused matplotlib to wail (while still working). It turned out that it uses a gnome icon - found in [ freedesktop's Hicolor Theme]

3. A "Broken Pipe" appeared because I didn't have gnuplot installed. Installing it fixed the problem.

4. A bunch of errors about /usr/share/matplotlib/matplotlib.svg. Resolved by copying home.png (from same dir) on top of it.

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Things that remain broken:

1. SLIP_2D_maps.py fails on import of clapack_sgesv. Removing the offending import line just makes it fail elsewhere. From warnings I saw in the build process, it seems that some clapack eigenvalue routine was removed/modified.

2. dopri problems - see ShaisTestLogs for details