Installation for users

Installation for users#

If you are on Linux or OSX, good news, installation is easy!

If you are on Windows please install a Debian/Ubuntu WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and then follow this guide.

If you want to use docker then please follow Use the spam docker image

OK, let’s get started, you just need to issue the following commands:

$ # install minimal system deps
$ sudo apt install python3 python3-venv libglu1-mesa libxrender1 libxcursor1 libxft2 libxinerama1 libgomp1
$ # Create a virtual environment
$ /usr/bin/python3 -m venv spam-venv
$ # Activate your virtual environment
$ source spam-venv/bin/activate
$ # update python package manager
$ pip install -U pip
$ # install spam
$ pip install spam

Note

  • On OSX if you have complaints about the gmp library, please brew install gmp

  • If the creation of the virtual environment fails, you can try to install the venv module of python on your system. On Ubuntu this is simply apt install python3-venv. More details on the python virtual environment.

  • After sourcing the virtual environment you’ll see (spam-venv) in front of your terminal prompt. This means that you have activated this python virtual environment. When you open a new terminal, you will have to re-activate your environment to have access to spam

spam should now be installed! You can try the following command to check:

(spam-venv) $ spam-ldic --help

If it prints out the options of the programme with no errors you’re good to go! If needed please visit: Install a spam jupyter kernel.

How to use#

In order to use spam you will always have to activate its virtual environment where it is installed:

$ source /path/to/spam/venv/bin/activate
(spam-venv) $

Using spam in your scripts#

You can include spam in your own scripts by importing different modules (see module index)

import spam.DIC

A lot of spam functionalities are available as atomic functions. Please refer to the Gallery of Examples for use of spam functions in python.

Using existing spam scripts#

We also provide more sophisticated functionality in spam-scripts, which are called directly from the command line (see Scripts in spam).

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