install.rst

Downloading and installing Kwant

The quickest and easiest way to install Kwant is using the prepared packages that are available for GNU/Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, and their variants, Arch Linux), Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. It is possible to be notified about new releases of Kwant through an announcement mailing list.

If no packages are available for the system you use, or if you would like to build Kwant from source for another reason (expert users may want to customize Kwant to use certain optimized versions of libraries), please consult the full installation instructions in the documentation.

The source code of released versions of Kwant is available for download. You can follow the development by cloning the Git repository of Kwant (browsable online).

Debian and derivatives

The easiest way to install Kwant on a Debian system is using the pre-built packages we provide. Our packages are known to work with Debian "stable" and Debian "testing", but they may also work on many other recent Debian-derived systems as well. (For example, the following works with recent Ubuntu versions, too.)

The lines prefixed with sudo have to be run as root.

1. Add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list:

   deb http://downloads.kwant-project.org/debian/ stable main
   deb-src http://downloads.kwant-project.org/debian/ stable main

2. (Optional) Add the OpenPGP key used to sign the repositories by executing:

   sudo apt-key adv --keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-key C3F147F5980F3535

   The fingerprint of the key is 5229 9057 FAD7 9965 3C4F 088A C3F1 47F5 980F 3535.

3. Update the package data, and install Kwant:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install python-kwant python-kwant-doc

   The python-kwant-doc package is optional and installs the HTML documentation of Kwant in the directory /usr/share/doc/python-kwant-doc.

Should the last command (apt-get install) fail due to unresolved dependencies, you can try to build and install your own packages, which is surprisingly easy:

cd /tmp

sudo apt-get build-dep tinyarray
apt-get source --compile tinyarray
sudo dpkg -i python-tinyarray_*.deb

sudo apt-get build-dep kwant
apt-get source --compile kwant
sudo dpkg -i python-kwant_*.deb python-kwant-doc_*.deb

This method should work for virtually all Debian-derived systems, even on exotic architectures.

Ubuntu and derivatives

Execute the following commands:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:kwant-project/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-kwant python-kwant-doc

This should provide Kwant for all versions of Ubuntu >= 12.04. The HTML documentation will be installed locally in the directory /usr/share/doc/python-kwant-doc.

Arch Linux

Arch install scripts for Kwant are kindly provided by Jörg Behrmann (formerly by Max Schlemmer). To install, follow the Arch User Repository installation instructions. Note that for checking the validity of the package you need to add the key used for signing to your user's keyring via:

gpg --keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-key C3F147F5980F3535

The fingerprint of the key is 5229 9057 FAD7 9965 3C4F 088A C3F1 47F5 980F 3535.

Mac OS X

There is a number of different package managers for bringing software from the Unix/Linux world to Mac OS X. Since the community is quite split, we provide Kwant and its dependencies both via the homebrew and the MacPorts systems.

Mac OS X: homebrew

homebrew is a recent addition to the package managers on Mac OS X. It is lightweight, tries to be as minimalistic as possible and give the user freedom than Macports. We recommend this option if you have no preferences.

1. Open a terminal and install homebrew as described on the homebrew homepage (instructions are towards the end of the page)

2. Run

   brew doctor

   and follow its directions. It will ask for a few prerequisites to be installed, in particular

   • the Xcode developer tools (compiler suite for Mac OS X) from http://developer.apple.com/downloads. You will need an Apple ID to download. Note that if you have one already from using the App store on the Mac/Ipad/Iphone/... you can use that one. Downloading the command line tools (not the full Xcode suite) is sufficient. If you have the full Xcode suite installed, you might need to download the command line tools manually if you have version 4 or higher. In this case go to Xcode->Preferences, click on Download, go to Components, select Command Line Tools and click on Install.
   • although brew doctor might not complain about it right away, while we're at it, you should also install the X11 server from the XQuartz project if you have Mac OS X 10.8 or higher.

3. Add permanently /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin/ in the $PATH$ environment variable of your shell, for example by adding

   export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

   at the end of your .bash_profile or .profile. Then close the terminal and reopen it again.

4. Install a few prerequisites

   brew install gcc python

5. Add additional repositories

   brew tap homebrew/science
   brew tap homebrew/python
   brew tap michaelwimmer/kwant

6. Install Kwant and its prerequisites

   pip install nose six
   brew install numpy scipy matplotlib
   brew install kwant

Notes:

• If something does not work as expected, use brew doctor for instructions (it will find conflicts and things like that).
• As mentioned, homebrew allows for quite some freedom. In particular, if you are an expert, you don't need necessarily to install numpy/scipy/matplotlib from homebrew, but can use your own installation. The only prerequisite is that they are importable from python. (the Kwant installation will in any case complain if they are not)
• In principle, you need not install the homebrew python, but could use Apple's already installed python. Homebrew's python is more up-to-date, though.

Mac OS X: MacPorts

MacPorts is a full-fledged package manager that recreates a whole Linux-like environment on your Mac.

In order to install Kwant using MacPorts, you have to

1. Install a recent version of MacPorts, as explained in the installation instructions of MacPorts. In particular, as explained there, you will have to install also a few prerequisites, namely

   • the Xcode developer tools (compiler suite for Mac OS X) from http://developer.apple.com/downloads. You will need an Apple ID to download. Note that if you have one already from using the App store on the Mac/Ipad/Iphone/... you can use that one. You will also need the command line tools: Within Xcode 4, you have to download them by going to Xcode->Preferences, click on Download, go to Components, select Command Line Tools and click on Install. Alternatively, you can also directly download the command line tools from the Apple developer website.
   • if you have Mac OS X 10.8 or higher, the X11 server from the XQuartz project.

2. After the installation, open a terminal and execute

   echo http://downloads.kwant-project.org/macports/ports.tar |\
   sudo tee -a /opt/local/etc/macports/sources.conf >/dev/null

   (this adds the Kwant MacPorts download link http://downloads.kwant-project.org/macports/ports.tar at the end of the sources.conf file.)

3. Execute

   sudo port selfupdate

4. Now, install Kwant and its prerequisites

   sudo port install py27-kwant

5. Finally, we choose python 2.7 to be the default python

   sudo port select --set python python27

   After that, you will need to close and reopen the terminal to have all changes in effect.

Notes:

• If you have problems with macports because your institution's firewall blocks macports (more precisely, the rsync port), resulting in errors from sudo port selfupdate, follow these instructions.
• Of course, if you already have macports installed, you can skip step 1 and continue with step 2.

Microsoft Windows

There are multiple distributions of scientific Python software for Windows that provide the prerequisites for Kwant. We recommend to use the packages kindly provided by Christoph Gohlke. To install Kwant on Windows

1. Determine whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit Windows installation by following these instructions.

2. Download and install Python 2.7 for the appropriate architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) from the official Python download site.

3. Open a command prompt, as described in "How do I get a command prompt" at the Microsoft Windows website.

4. In the command prompt window, execute:

   C:\Python27\python.exe C:\Python27\Tools\Scripts\win_add2path.py

   (Instead of typing this command, you can also just copy it from here and paste it into the command prompt window). If you did not use the default location to install Python in step 2, then replace C:\Python27 by the actual location where Python is installed.

5. Reboot your computer.

6. Download the necessary packages (with the ending .whl) for your operating system (32 or 64 bit) and Python version (e.g. cp27 for Python 2.7) from the website of Christoph Gohlke. For Kwant, we recommend to download at least NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, Nose, Tinyarray, and Kwant itself.

7. Now open a command prompt with administrator rights, as described in "How do I run a command with elevated permissions" at the Microsoft Windows website.

   In this new command prompt window, execute

   pip install <filename>

   for each of the downloaded files (replacing <filename> with it).

   Now you are done, you can import kwant from within Python scripts.

(Note that many other userful scientific packages are available in Gohlke’s repository. For example, you might want to install IPython and its various dependencies so that you can use the IPython notebook.)