How to install python-matplotlib in ubuntu 12.04?

Question

When I tried

$ sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib

I got the following error:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package python-matplotlib

How to install it?

Answer 1

One "cleaner" way to install matplotlib is to go through pip:

sudo apt-get install python-pip
sudo pip install matplotlib

It will also ensure that you'll get the most up to date stable version and will be easier to maintain when an upgrade is pushed to pypi.

If the build process complains about missing headers files just install the missing lib with:

sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev libpng-dev

Warning: it can take a lot of time to fully build as one dependency of matplotlib is numpy which is quite a project in terms of c extension.

Answer 2

type the following commands in terminal:

$ wget https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/zipball/master
$ unzip master
$ cd matplotlib-matplotlib-bb3ea55
$ sudo python2.7 setup.py build
$ sudo python2.7 setup.py install

If the unzip command doesn't work properly, extract the files manually. $ cd matplotlib-matplotlib-bb3ea55 should be the proper directory (however the last seven characters may be different).