
This document describes the standard CVXOPT installation procedure on 
Linux systems.  For other platforms, please consult the CVXOPT website 
<abel.ee.ucla.edu/cvxopt>.


Required and optional software 
------------------------------

The package requires version 2.7 or 3.x of Python, and is built from 
source, so the header files and libraries for Python must be installed, 
as well as the core binaries.

The installation requires either ATLAS or BLAS + LAPACK.  Using 
architecture optimized ATLAS libraries is recommended and gives a large 
performance improvement over standard BLAS & LAPACK libraries.  Both 
header files and libraries must be installed.  

The following software libraries are optional.  

* The GNU Scientific Library GSL <www.gnu.org/software/gsl>.

* FFTW <www.fftw.org> is a C library for discrete Fourier transforms.

* GLPK <www.gnu.org/software/glpk/glpk.html> is a linear programming 
  package.  

* MOSEK version 6 <www.mosek.com> is a commercial library of convex 
  optimization solvers.  

* DSDP5.8 <www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/DSDP> is a semidefinite programming solver. 


Installation 
------------

CVXOPT can be installed globally (for all users on a UNIX system) by 
writing:

    python setup.py install

It can also be installed locally (for a single user) by typing::

    python setup.py install --user

To test that the installation was successful, go to the examples directory 
and try one of the examples, for example, 

     cd examples/doc/chap8
     python lp.py

If Python does not issue an error message, installation was successful.

Additional information can be found in the 
Python documentation <http://docs.python.org/install/index.html>.


Customized setup script 
-----------------------

If needed, the default compilation can be customized by edting src/setup.py.
The following variables in the setup script can be modified.

* BLAS_LIB_DIR: the directory containing the LAPACK and BLAS libraries.

* BUILD_GSL: set this variable to 1 if you would like to use the GSL  
  random number generators for constructing random matrices in CVXOPT.  
  If BULD_GSL is 0, the Python random number generators will be used 
  instead.  
* GSL_LIB_DIR: the directory containing libgsl.
* GSL_INC_DIR: the directory containing the GSL header files. 

* BUILD_FFTW: set this variable to 1 to install the cvxopt.fftw module,
  which is an interface to FFTW.
* FFTW_LIB_DIR: the directory containing libfftw3.
* FFTW_INC_DIR: the directory containing fftw.h.

* BUILD_GLPK: set this variable to 1 to enable support for the linear
  programming solver GLPK.  
* GLPK_LIB_DIR: the directory containing libglpk.
* GLPK_INC_DIR: the directory containing glpk.h. 

* BUILD_DSDP: set this variable to 1 to enable support for the semidefinite
  programming solver DSDP.
* DSDP_LIB_DIR: the directory containing libdsdp.
* DSDP_INC_DIR: the directory containing dsdp5.h.

Support for the linear, second-order cone, and quadratic programming 
solvers in MOSEK is automatically enabled if the MOSEK Python interface
pymosek.so is found in the user's PYTHONPATH.

