Pip install Matplotlib error with virtualenv

Question

I am trying to install matplotlib in a new virtualenv.

When I do:

pip install matplotlib

or

pip install http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/files/matplotlib/matplotlib-1.1.0/matplotlib-1.1.0.tar.gz

I get this error:

building 'matplotlib._png' extension

gcc -pthread -fno-strict-aliasing -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O2 -Wall -fPIC -  DPY_ARRAY_UNIQUE_SYMBOL=MPL_ARRAY_API -DPYCXX_ISO_CPP_LIB=1 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include -I. -I/home/sam/django-projects/datazone/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/include -I. -I/usr/include/python2.7 -c src/_png.cpp -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-2.7/src/_png.o

src/_png.cpp:10:20: fatal error: png.h: No such file or directory

compilation terminated.

error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

Anyone have an idea what is going on?

Any help much appreciated.

Solution 1

Building Matplotlib requires libpng (and freetype, as well) which isn't a python library, so pip doesn't handle installing it (or freetype).

You'll need to install something along the lines of libpng-devel and freetype-devel (or whatever the equivalent is for your OS).

See the building requirements/instructions for matplotlib.

Solution 2

To generate graph in png format you need to Install following dependent packages

sudo apt-get install libpng-dev
sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev

Ubuntu https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/libpng12-0/ or using following command

sudo apt-get install libpng12-0

Solution 3

As I have struggled with this issue twice (even after fresh kubuntu 15.04 install) and installing freetype did not solve anything, I investigated further.

The solution:
From github issue:

This bug only occurs if pkg-config is not installed;
a simple
sudo apt-get install pkg-config
will shore up the include paths for now.

After this installation proceeds smoothly.

Solution 4

As a supplementary, on Amazon EC2, what I need to do is:

sudo yum install freetype-devel
sudo yum install libpng-devel
sudo pip install matplotlib

Solution 5

On OSX I was able to get matplotlib to install via:

pip install matplotlib==1.4.0

only after I ran:

brew install freetype

View more solutions

Comments

[LondonRob]

You may also see The following required packages can not be built: freetype, png which is the same error in (I think) a newer version of pip.

[Darwin Tech]

Thanks for the info! I finally got it working by installing the following dependencies in ubuntu: libpng-dev, libjpeg8-dev, libfreetype6-dev.

[william_grisaitis]

sudo apt-get build-dep python-matplotlib also does the trick!

[Achal Dave]

It may work, but note that it wants to install quite a few packages (more than can fit in this comment box), but about 0.6 GB worth of packages.

[Jon]

On my debian (wheezy/unstable) system it was failing even with libfreetype6-dev installed. It turned out that I also needed pkg-config installed.

[Drew]

I actually have libfreetype6-dev intalled on ubuntu 14.04. Matplotlib seems not to be picking it.

[mirandes]

Also check the versions you have installed are the ones stated in the requirements. I already had png (libpng) and freetype installed and "yum" said that they were already at the latest version. However, the version was still lower than the requirements so I had to go to the package's website and install by hand. That fixed it for me.

[Roman]

It is recommended to install a package to a virtual environment, which makes pip so nice. Hence sudo pip install negates most of the usefulness that pip brings to the table.

[Lily]

Same here. pip install matplotlib gave me error: IMPORTANT WARNING: pkg-config is not installed. matplotlib may not be able to find some of its dependencies. Freetype shows not installed. I just did brew install pkg-config and was able to get by.

[jpcgt]

I needed sudo apt-get install pkg-config first though.

[Jens de Bruijn]

This is also the problem on Bash on Ubuntu on Windows Insider Preview

[Ilmari Karonen]

@RahulChauhan: Please post your alternative solution as a separate answer instead of trying to edit it into someone else's answer.