[NEST Users] Re: Installation procedure of NEST on M1 mac

Dear Julien, As a starting doctoral student in the field of computational neurosciences, I am particularly interested in using NEST in my research works. However, I am a bit confused about the procedure to install NEST on a M1 macbook pro, therefore, I prefer to ask you before doing anything. From what I understood from your website here are the steps that, I suppose, I should do to install NEST properly: - as I use a M1MAX Mac (MacOS 12.0) , I can't just install nest, I have to build it. To do so: - Download Miniforge for arm64 (from which I will be able to use Conda right?) Yes. - NOT NECESSARY: Install Python 3.9.4 for arm Mac macOS 64-bit universal2 installer <https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.8/python-3.9.8-macos11.pkg> - Download the nest source code directly from github ( https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator) Yes. Use the most recent released tarball/zip archive of NEST. - Create a conda environment using the following command conda env create -f extras/conda-nest-simulator-dev.yml Yes. IMPORTANT: Since you are using Apple Silicon, you must open the conda-nest-simulator-dev.yml file and remove the following lines: # Running NEST Server ---- - flask - flask_cors - requests - uwsgi - werkzeug This is because some packages (uwsgi) is not available for M1 yet (last checked two weeks ago). - Activate this environment ( conda activate...) - Create a build directory outside the NEST source and go into it - Install cmake package using conda ( conda install -c anaconda cmake) - Configure NEST by running: cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=<nest_install_dir> <nest_source_dir> - Once done I can run make. make install. make installcheck Yes to the five above. Here are my questions: - Is this installation procedure correct? - Once installed, how can I launch NEST from a python interpreter such as Spyder? Or is it only possible to launch it within a terminal window? You need to make sure that the path to the NEST installation is in your PYTHONPATH. In the Terminal, that is handled by sourcing `nest_vars.sh`. I am off-hand not entirely certain how to make it work in Spyder. - I am quite new to managing packages, so correct me if I am wrong, but have I to install everything using exclusively Conda ? Installing all via Conda makes things a lot easier. - What is the purpose of creating a new environment to build NEST Very briefly, to have all in place you need without cluttering your overall Python setup. There are many more answers to that out on the net, see eg https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/why-you-need-python-environments-and-how-… I realize how many questions I ask you, and I am very grateful for every advice you could give me. If it is more convenient for you, we can have a phone call when you want. We can help with NEST-specific issues, but for basic issues of how to install, build and run software it might be more productive to see if you can get help locally? Best, Hans Ekkehard -- *Julien BALLBÉ Y SABATÉ* *Étudiant en thèse - PhD student* *Neurophysiology of Visual Computation* Centre Giovanni Borelli - CNRS UMR 9010 Université de Paris 45 rue des Saint-Pères, 75006 Paris, France Tel: +33 6 79 03 40 35 _______________________________________________ NEST Users mailing list -- users(a)nest-simulator.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave(a)nest-simulator.org