VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 12 2006 - 15:37:31 CDT

Hi,
  The standard builds of VMD 1.8.5 for MacOS X don't have Python compiled
in due to stability problems I encountered during testing. The problem wasn't
actually Python, but the Python-enabled builds we made use the Apple-provided
Tcl, Tk, and Python libraries (all three have to work together...), however
the Apple-based-builds exhibited some flaky behavior, so I decided to relegate
them as an alternative build (they are posted on the "unofficial builds"
link in the download system), since I didn't want the stability issues I
saw affecting the entire MacOS X community. So in order to use Python,
you can either try using the alternative OSX builds based on the
Apple-provided Tcl/Tk/Python, or you can compile VMD from source using your
own Python library. I'd suggest trying the unofficial builds I made first,
if they are stable enough, you could just use them as-is. If you experience
stability problems like I did, then you may want to build from source using
your own Python library. For the next version of VMD, I'll try building
against either the "MacPython" distribution of Python, or I'll make my
own, since the Apple provided library combination wasn't stable enough for
my taste. In theory Apple might update their libraries with a system update,
and the stability issues could improve, but as far as I know they didn't do
this for prior versions of Tcl/Tk/Python included with MacOS X, so for now
I assume I'll have to do this for myself.

  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Thu, Oct 12, 2006 at 02:25:01PM -0400, Michael Lerner wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've googled around and looked through the mailing list, but I still
> haven't quite found the answer, so my appologies in advance if this is
> a dumb question.
>
> I just downloaded VMD 1.8.5 for MacOS X (Intel x86) using native
> OpenGL. The release notes say, among other things "MacOS 10.4
> versions for PowerPC and Intel processors use the Apple-provided
> Tcl/Tk and Python frameworks, ..." However, when I type "gopython"
> from the vmd prompt, I get
>
> vmd > gopython
> invalid command name "gopython"
> vmd >
>
> I'm not terribly experienced with OS X, but I also tried running
>
> /Applications/VMD 1.8.5.app/Contents/vmd/vmd_MACOSXX86 -python
>
> from a shell and got
>
> ERROR) Sorry, this version VMD was compiled with Python support disabled
> ERROR) Skipping startup script because Python could not be started.
>
> So ... is there a Python-enabled version available somewhere? Am I
> doing something obviously wrong?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Michael Lerner
> Graduate Student
> Biophysics Research Division
> University of Michigan 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078