Installing kafe2

Warning

kafe2 versions 2.3.x are the latest versions which support Python 2. Python 2 support will be dropped for all future releases.

Requirements

kafe2 needs some additional Python packages. When kafe2 is installed via pip, those packages are automatically installed as dependencies:

Since kafe2 relies on matplotlib for graphics it might be necessary to install external programs:

  • Tkinter, the default GUI used by matplotlib

Optionally, a function minimizer other than scipy.optimize.minimize can be used. kafe2 implements interfaces to two function minimizers and will use them by default if they’re installed:

  • MINUIT, which is included in CERN’s data analysis package ROOT (>= 5.34), or

  • iminuit (>= 1.5.2), which is independent of ROOT

Installation notes (Linux)

The easiest way to install kafe2 is via pip, which is already included in Python. Installing via pip will automatically install the minimal dependencies. Please note that commands below could be run as root to install them system-wide or as the current user, optionally with the parameter “–user”, to install kafe2 only locally.

For Python 3:

pip install kafe2

If you don’t have pip installed, get it from the package manager.

In Ubuntu/Mint/Debian, do:

apt-get install python3-pip

In Fedora/RHEL/CentOS, do:

yum install python3-pip

or use easy_install (included with setuptools):

easy_install pip

You will also need to install Tkinter if it didn’t already come with your Python distribution.

For Python 3, Ubuntu/Mint/Debian:

apt-get install python3-tk

For Python 3, Fedora/RHEL/CentOS:

yum install python3-tkinter

Optional: Install ROOT

Warning

On recent kafe2 versions ROOT is not functional as an optimization backend. Use iminuit instead.

Note: Starting with Ubuntu 16.10, *ROOT* is no longer available in the official repositories.

In older versions of Ubuntu (and related Linux distributions), ROOT and its Python bindings can be obtained via the package manager via:

apt-get install root-system libroot-bindings-python5.34 libroot-bindings-python-dev

Or, in Fedora/RHEL/CentOS:

yum install root root-python

This setup is usually sufficient. However, you may decide to build ROOT yourself. In this case, be sure to compile with PyROOT support. Additionally, for Python to see the PyROOT bindings, the following environment variables have to be set correctly (:

export ROOTSYS=<directory where ROOT is installed>
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ROOTSYS/lib:$PYTHONDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export PYTHONPATH=$ROOTSYS/lib:$PYTHONPATH

For more info, refer to http://root.cern.ch/drupal/content/pyroot.

Optional: Install iminuit

iminuit is a Python wrapper for the Minuit minimizer which is independent of ROOT. This minimizer can be used instead of ROOT.

To install the iminuit package for Python, the Pip installer is recommended:

pip install iminuit

Note that the above command does not upgrade iminuit if it is already installed; To do this add the “–upgrade” option to the above command. kafe2 officially supports iminuit 1.5.4 and the newest version of iminuit 2. To install the legacy version of iminuit, do:

pip install iminuit==1.5.4

Note: the last version of iminuit that was usable in combination with Python 2.7 was iminuit 1.3.10. The use of Python 2.7 in combination with iminuit is therefore not officially supported. You might also need to install the Python headers for iminuit to compile properly.

In Ubuntu/Mint/Debian, do:

apt-get install libpython3-dev

In Fedora/RHEL/CentOS, do:

yum install python3-devel

Installation notes (Windows)

Todo

Update and test this section

kafe2 can be installed under Windows, but requires some additional configuration.

The recommended Python distribution for working with kafe2 under Windows is WinPython, which has the advantage that it is portable and comes with a number of useful pre-installed packages. Particularly, NumPy, SciPy and matplotlib are all pre-installed in WinPython, as are all Qt-related dependencies.

Install iminuit

After installing WinPython, start ‘WinPython Command Prompt.exe’ in the WinPython installation directory and run

pip install 'iminuit'

Install kafe2

Now kafe can be installed from PyPI by running:

pip install kafe2

Alternatively, it may be installed directly using setuptools. Just run the following in ‘WinPython Command Prompt.exe’ after switching to the directory into which you have downloaded kafe2:

python -m build

Using kafe with ROOT under Windows

Warning

On recent kafe2 versions ROOT is not functional as an optimization backend. Use iminuit instead.

If you want kafe to work with ROOT’s TMinuit instead of using iminuit, then ROOT has to be installed. Please note that ROOT releases for Windows are 32-bit and using the PyROOT bindings on a 64-bit WinPython distribution will not work.

A pre-built verson of ROOT for Windows is available on the ROOT homepage as a Windows Installer package. The recommended version is ROOT 5.34. During the installation process, select “Add ROOT to the system PATH for all users” when prompted. This will set the PATH environment variable to include the relevant ROOT directories. The installer also sets the ROOTSYS environment variable, which points to the directory where ROOT in installed. By default, this is C:\root_v5.34.34.

Additionally, for Python to find the PyROOT bindings, the PYTHONPATH environment variable must be modified to include the bin subdirectory of path where ROOT is installed. On Windows 10, assuming ROOT has been installed in the default directory (C:\root_v5.34.34), this is achieved as follows:

  1. open the Start Menu and start typing “environment variables”

  2. select “Edit the system environment variables”

  3. click the “Environment Variables…” button

  4. in the lower part, under “System variables”, look for the “PYTHONPATH” entry

  5. modify/add the “PYTHONPATH” entry:

    • if it doesn’t exist, create it by choosing “New…”, enter PYTHONPATH as the variable name and C:\root_v5.34.34\bin as the variable value

    • if it already exists and contains only one path, edit it via “Edit…” and insert C:\root_v5.34.34\bin; at the beginning of the variable value. (Note the semicolon!)

    • if the variable already contains several paths, choosing “Edit…” will show a dialog box to manage them. Choose “New” and write C:\root_v5.34.34\bin

  6. close all opened dialogs with “OK”

Now you may try to import ROOT in the WinPython interpreter to check if everything has been set up correctly.

For more information please refer to ROOT’s official PyROOT Guide.