Linux installation instructions

As Linux distributions tend to have excellent package managers, it is particularly easy to install all of the required packages on Linux. For this reason, for Linux users, we recommend installing the colorimeter software from source. The latest stable version of the source package can be downloaded from here and the development version can be found in the colorimeter project's mercurial repository here https://bitbucket.org/iorodeo/colorimeter.

The following packages are required by the colorimeter software:

The required packages are typically available through your linux distribution's package manager. For example, on ubuntu, they can be installed using the following command

sudo apt-get install python-serial python-qt4 python-numpy python-matplotlib python-yaml

While it isn't required we recommend installing the colorimeter software into a python virtual enviroment to avoid any possible conflict with your system's package manager. The python virtual environment builder is availalbe here http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv/. It can be installed using pip (pip install virtualenv) or via your system package manager. For example on ubuntu you can use the following command

sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv

A new virtual enviroment named, colorenv, can be created via the command

virtualenv colorenv

Note, this command will create a directory named colorenv which contains files required for the virtual environment in the directory in which it is run. Also, on some systems you might need to include the --system-site-packages flag in order to ensure that your virtual environment will inherit package from /usr/lib/python.7/site-packages.

To install the colorimeter software into the colorenv virtual enviroment we first need to activate the virtual environment. This can be done using the following command

source <path to colorenv>/bin/activate

Next, keeping the virtual enviroment active, cd to the top level directory of the colorimeter python package (the one containing the setup.py file). Install the package using the following command

python setup.py install

After installation the colorimeter software can be started, from within the virtual enviroment, via the command colorimeter-main. In additon, within the virtual environment, the colorimeterpython module containing the serial library for communicating with the colorimeter device will be available for use in your own programs.