Upgrade to numpy 1.8.0 on Ubuntu 12.04

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 which comes by default with NumPy 1.6.0 (I have, actually had, Python 2.7.3 installed). As a result of the answer to this question polyfit() got an unexpected keyword argument 'w', I need to upgrade it.

I downloaded the .tar.gz package for the version 1.8.0 from here, unpacked it, moved inside the folder and run the commands:

python setup.py build --fcompiler=gnu95
python setup.py install --user

as described in the user guide and in this question: Building NumPy 1.7.1 on Ubuntu.

This resulted in NumPy no longer loading in Spyder, which now shows the error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/spyderlib/scientific_startup.py", line 16, in <module>
    from pylab import *  #analysis:ignore
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pylab.py", line 1, in <module>
    from matplotlib.pylab import *
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py", line 165, in <module>
    from matplotlib.rcsetup import (defaultParams,
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/matplotlib/rcsetup.py", line 20, in <module>
    from matplotlib.colors import is_color_like
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/matplotlib/colors.py", line 52, in <module>
    import numpy as np
  File "/home/gabriel/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/__init__.py", line 153, in <module>
    from . import add_newdocs
  File "/home/gabriel/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/add_newdocs.py", line 13, in <module>
    from numpy.lib import add_newdoc
  File "/home/gabriel/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/lib/__init__.py", line 8, in <module>
    from .type_check import *
  File "/home/gabriel/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/lib/type_check.py", line 11, in <module>
    import numpy.core.numeric as _nx
  File "/home/gabriel/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/__init__.py", line 6, in <module>
    from . import multiarray
ImportError: /home/gabriel/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/multiarray.so: undefined symbol: PyUnicodeUCS2_FromUnicode

upon loading it. The same happened when I tried with version 1.7.1.

I tried removing numpy with:

sudo apt-get remove python-numpy

which also removed matplotlib and scipy. So then I tried reinstalling them with:

sudo apt-get install python-numpy python-scipy python-matplotlib

but this fails with the error:

    from sre_constants import *
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/sre_constants.py", line 18, in <module>
    from _sre import MAXREPEAT
ImportError: cannot import name MAXREPEAT

Now I'm left with no running python and I don't even know how to go back to the previous stable version. So the question: can I install at least version 1.7.1 in my system and if not, how do I go back to a working 1.6.0 version? Thanks.

Answer 1

sudo pip install numpy --upgrade

will do the same thing with slightly less effort.