Installation using pip

One way of installing stormtracks is using pip in a python virtualenv. The instructions below show how to do this on a Debian based Linux system (e.g. Ubuntu, Linux Mint) and a recent Fedora Core system (Fedora Core 22). They should be usable with minor modifications on other Linux/Unix platforms, e.g. on older Fedora Core system replace dnf with yum.

Install system dependencies (Debian)

Open a terminal and run these commands to get pip, virtualenv and some tools for compiling binaries.

sudo aptitude install python-pip build-essential
sudo pip install virtualenv

Install system dependencies (Fedora Core 22)

Open a terminal and run these commands to get pip, virtualenv and some tools for compiling binaries.

sudo dnf install gcc python-devel
sudo pip install virtualenv

Create virtualenv

Creates and activates a virtualenv to run stormtracks from:

mkdir stormtracks
cd stormtracks
virtualenv .env
source .env/bin/activate

Install stormtracks

Installing stormtracks using pip will install stormtracks-admin.py, a utility which can help install stormtrack’s dependencies. This will perform a complete install on Debian based linux computers. This will prompt you for your root password, if you are unhappy about this then use the next manual method to see what is going on. First installation will take a while, around 20-30 mins. Subsequent installations should be faster, around 1 min.

pip install stormtracks # N.B. relies on gcc/make being installed.
stormtracks-admin.py install-full
# stormtracks-admin.py install-full -o fedora_core

(Alternative) Manually install system dependencies

Installs libraries required to build the python packages (Debian based Linux). Fixes a library so as basemap will build properly by symlinking the required library. Installs pip requirements in 4 stages to get round some installation problems with some of the modules.

stormtracks-admin.py print-installation-commands
# stormtracks-admin.py print-installation-commands -o fedora_core
stormtracks-admin.py print-installation-commands > install.sh
bash install.sh

Installation using conda

Conda can also be used to install most of the packages. (Conda is roughly the equivalent of pip and virtualenv combined.) The general idea is the same as for pip, although due to the difference in the way packages are bundled this might be (far) faster as no compilation of software is required. First, install conda, which can be done by downloading and installing anaconda.

mkdir stormtracks
cd stormtracks
conda create -n stormtracks python # Creates conda env.
source activate stormtracks # Activates env.
conda install pip # Might not be necessary, makes sure pip is installed.
pip install stormtracks # N.B. relies on gcc/make being installed.
stormtracks-admin.py copy-files # Copies files to current dir.
conda install --file requirements/conda_requirements.txt # Installs most dependencies.
pip install -r requirements/conda_pip_requirements.txt # Installs simplejson.

Where to go from here

Head to the Quickstart guide to see how to download, process and analyse one year.