TurboGears Installation on Mac OS X

Getting Python

Your Mac comes with Python built into the system. The latest release of Mac OS X, version 10.5 ("Leopard") even comes with Python 2.5. Mac OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") only has Python 2.3 pre-installed. While TurboGears works with Python 2.3, it is strongly recommended that you upgrade to Python 2.5. The decorator syntax supported by Python 2.4 and higher will make your life much more pleasant and you'll be using a LOT of decorators in TurboGears.

So, if you are on OS X 10.4, here's how to upgrade Python:

1. Download Python 2.5 for the Mac. Follow the link that says "installer for the latest version".
2. Run the installer.
3. Open the Terminal application (under "Applications/Utilities").
4. Run the command echo $PATH and make sure that /usr/local/bin appears before /usr/bin in your path! If it's not there, check the section "How Do I Change my Path on Mac OS X?" below for tips on changing it.

Installing TurboGears

For most people, the following works without a hitch, but if you have problems, check the "Troubleshooting" section below.

Following these instructions will install TurboGears and all required packages under the installation directory of your Python installation, so you need to use sudo to be able to write files there and in /usr/local/bin.

1. Open the Terminal application (under "Applications/Utilities").

2. Make sure you have at least Python 2.4, or better 2.5:

   $ python -V

   If not, please upgrade your Python installation (see above).

3. Download tgsetup.py and run:

   $ curl -OL http://www.turbogears.org/download/tgsetup.py
   $ sudo python tgsetup.py

4. Make sure you have /usr/local/bin on your path (see below) and then check that everything went well by running:

   $ tg-admin info

Once you've gotten TurboGears and a database driver installed, jump over to the 20 minute wiki tutorial to get your feet wet.

Also consider signing up for the mailing list. We're always happy to help people work through their problems and you might have something to share with us.

Database Driver

If you plan to use a database with TurboGears, you will need to install the appropriate driver. You can either download it from the PythonMac packages page or use easy_install. Below is a list of databases and their drivers available from this page:

• MySQL - MySQL_python (formerly known as MySQLdb)
• PostgreSQL - psycopg2
• SQLite - pysqlite2
• Others, as supported by SQLObject or SQLAlchemy

To install a database module with easy_install:

1. Open the Terminal application (under "Applications/Utilities") and check whether you already have easy_install, by running the command:

   $ which easy_install

   If you get no output, you don't have it on your system.

2. If you don't have easy_install, either perform the TurboGears installation, as described above, first (which also installs easy_install for you) or download the ez_setup.py script and run:

   $ curl -O http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py
   $ sudo python ez_setup.py

3. Then install your preferred database module with:

   $ sudo easy_install package-name

   e.g:

   $ sudo easy_install pysqlite

You only need one driver, but if you choose MySQL or PostgreSQL, it's nice to have SQLite for testing and initial development. If you are using Python 2.5, SQLite is supported out of the box and you don't need to install pysqlite.

How Do I Change my Path on Mac OS X?

Mac OS X is Unix-like under the hood. There are many ways to accomplish just about anything, including setting your path.

If you haven't already, run echo $PATH and check to see that /usr/local/bin is there and that it appears before /usr/bin/. If not, you'll need to add it to either your own profile or to the system profile. First, you'll need to see which shell you're using:

echo $SHELL

If the output is /bin/tcsh:

echo 'set path = (/usr/local/bin $path)' >> ~/.cshrc
source ~/.cshrc

If the output is /bin/bash/:

echo 'PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH; export PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile

This will apply to your current user only. To set it system wide, you'll have to edit /etc/profile, but that's beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Troubleshooting

Problem

The installation fails with an error message containing "gcc failed".

Diagnosis

The installation procedure tried to install a required package that contains a C-extension and could not find a pre-compiled binary egg for your operating system and/or architecture. It then tried to compile the extension on your system and failed, because no compiler could be found.

Solution

1. Install the Xcode developer tools and try again.
2. Post a request to the mailing list asking for someone to upload a matching binary egg for your system/architecture to turbogears.org.

Problem

When I try to run tg-admin command after the installation, I get the message bash: tg-admin: command not found.

Diagnosis

Did you check that /usr/local/bin is on the command search path?

Solution

Prepend /usr/local/bin to the PATH environment variable (see above).

Please also check the installation troubleshooting page for common problems not specific to Mac installation and if you are still stuck feel free to ask for help on the mailing list.

Past comments:

localhost
2008-05-27 15:55:18

The Package Names under "Database Drivers" appear to be wrong:
MySQL should be MySQL-python
SQLite should be pysqlite