Getting started¶

Installing¶

Installing with pip (platform-independent)¶

Taurus can be installed using pip. The following command will automatically download and install the latest release of Taurus (see pip –help for options):

pip install taurus

You can test the installation by running:

python -c "import taurus; print taurus.Release.version"

Note: pip is already included in python>2.7.9

Note: some “extra” features of taurus have additional dependencies.

Installing from sources manually (platform-independent)¶

You may alternatively install from a downloaded release package:

Download the latest sources of taurus from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/taurus
Extract the downloaded source into a temporary directory and change to it
run:
```
pip install .
```

test the installation:

python -c "import taurus; print taurus.Release.version"

Note: some “extra” features of taurus have additional dependencies.

Linux (Debian-based)¶

Since v3.0, Taurus is part of the official repositories of Debian (and Ubuntu and other Debian-based distros). You can install it and all its dependencies by doing (as root):

aptitude install python-taurus

(see more detailed instructions in this step-by-step howto)

Windows¶

Install the Python(x,y) bundle (alternatively, you could install Python, PyQt, PLY, and other dependencies independently, but Python(x,y) will save you much worries about versions).
Download the latest Taurus windows binary from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/taurus
Run the installation executable

test the installation:

C:\Python27\python -c "import taurus; print taurus.Release.version"

Working from Git source directly (in develop mode)¶

If you intend to do changes to Taurus itself, or want to try the latest developments, it is convenient to work directly from the git source in “develop” (aka “editable”) mode, so that you do not need to re-install on each change.

You can clone taurus from our main git repository:

git clone https://github.com/taurus-org/taurus.git taurus

Then, to work in develop mode, just do:

pip install -e ./taurus

Dependencies¶

Strictly speaking, Taurus only depends on numpy, but that will leave out most of the features normally expected of Taurus (which are considered “extras”). For example:

Interacting with a Tango controls system requires PyTango.
Interacting with an Epics controls system requires pyepics.
Using the taurus Qt widgets, requires PyQt 4.x (4.8 <= v < 5). (PyQt5 support coming soon).
The taurus.qt.qtgui.plot module requires PyQwt.
The image widgets require the guiqwt library.
The JDraw synoptics widgets require the PLY package.
The NeXus browser widget requires PyMca5.
The TaurusEditor widget requires spyder.
The TaurusGui module requires lxml.

For a complete list of “extra” features and their corresponding requirements, execute the following command:

python -c 'import taurus; taurus.check_dependencies()'

How you install the required dependencies depends on your preferred installation method:

For GNU/Linux, it is in general better to install the dependencies from your distribution repositories if available.
For Windows users: many of these dependencies are already satisfied by installing the Python(x,y) bundle. Also, most can be installed from PyPI (e.g. using pip). For some versions, PyPI may not provide pre-built windows binaries, so pip may try to compile from sources, which takes long and may not succeed without some further work. In those cases, one may use windows binaries from other versions and/or wheel packages from the Silx_WheelHouse.
In general, you can use pip to install dependencies for a given extra feature (if they are in PyPI or in one of your configured indexes). Use:
```
pip install taurus[NAME_OF_EXTRA]
```
The Conda package management system may also be used to install most of the required dependencies.
The taurus-test Docker container provides a Docker container (based on Debian) with all the dependencies pre-installed (including Tango and Epics running environments) on which you can install taurus straight away.