Installing Dedalus

Installing the Dedalus Package

Dedalus is a Python 3 package that includes custom C-extensions (compiled with Cython) and that relies on MPI, FFTW (linked to MPI), HDF5, and a basic scientific-Python stack: numpy, scipy, mpi4py (linked to the same MPI), and h5py.

If you have the necessary C dependencies (MPI, FFTW+MPI, and HDF5), as well as Python 3, you should be able to install Dedalus from PyPI or build it from source. Otherwise, see one of the alternate sections below for instructions for building the dependency stack.

Installing from PyPI

We currently only provide Dedalus on PyPI as a source distribution so that the Cython extensions are properly linked to your FFTW library at build-time. To install Dedalus from PyPI, first set the FFTW_PATH environment variable to the prefix paths for FFTW and then install using pip:

export FFTW_PATH=/path/to/your/fftw_prefix
pip3 install dedalus

Building from source

Alternately, to build the lastest version of Dedalus from source: clone the repository, set the FFTW_PATH variable, install the build requirements, and install using pip:

hg clone https://bitbucket.org/dedalus-project/dedalus
cd dedalus
export FFTW_PATH=/path/to/your/fftw_prefix
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
pip3 install .

Updating Dedalus

If Dedalus was installed from PyPI, it can be updated using:

export FFTW_PATH=/path/to/your/fftw_prefix
pip3 install --upgrade Dedalus

If Dedalus was built from source, it can be updated by first pulling new changes from the source repository, and then reinstalling with pip:

cd /path/to/dedalus/repo
hg pull
hg update
export FFTW_PATH=/path/to/your/fftw_prefix
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
pip3 install --upgrade --force-reinstall .

Uninstalling Dedalus

If Dedalus was installed using pip, it can be uninstalled using:

pip3 uninstall dedalus

Conda Installation

We preliminarily support installation through conda via a custom script that allows you to link against custom MPI/FFTW/HDF5 libraries, or opt for the builds of those packages that are available through conda.

First, install conda/miniconda for your system if you don’t already have it, following the instructions from conda. Then download the Dedalus conda installation script from this link or using:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DedalusProject/conda_dedalus/master/install_conda.sh

Modify the options at the top of the script to link against custom MPI/FFTW/HDF5 libraries, choose between OpenBLAS and MKL-based numpy and scipy, and set the name of the resulting conda environment. Then activate the base conda environment and run the script to build a new conda environment with Dedalus and its dependencies, as requested:

conda activate base
bash install_conda.sh

Installation Script

Dedalus provides an all-in-one installation script that will build an isolated stack containing a Python installation and the other dependencies needed to run Dedalus. In most cases, the script can be modified to link with system installations of FFTW, MPI, and linear algebra libraries.

You can get the installation script from this link, or download it using:

wget https://bitbucket.org/dedalus-project/dedalus/raw/tip/docs/install.sh

and execute it using:

bash install.sh

The installation script has been tested on a number of Linux distributions and OS X. If you run into trouble using the script, please get in touch on the user list.