Installation instructions

The brian2tools package is a pure Python package that should be installable without problems most of the time, either using the Anaconda distribution or using pip. However, it depends on the brian2 package which has more complex requirements for installation. The recommended approach is therefore to first install brian2 following the instruction in the Brian 2 documentation and then use the same approach (i.e. either installation with Anaconda or installation with pip) for brian2tools.

Installation with Anaconda

Since brian2tools (and brian2 on which it depends) are not part of the main Anaconda distribution, you have to install it from the brian-team channel. To do so use:

conda install -c brian-team brian2tools

You can also permanently add the channel to your list of channels:

conda config --add channels brian-team

This has only to be done once. After that, you can install and update the brian2 packages as any other Anaconda package:

conda install brian2tools

Installing optional requirements

The 3D plotting of morphologies (see Morphologies in 2D or 3D) depends on the mayavi package. You can install it from anaconda as well:

conda install mayavi

Installation with pip

If you decide not to use Anaconda, you can install brian2tools from the Python package index: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/brian2tools

To do so, use the pip utility:

pip install brian2tools

You might want to add the --user flag, to install Brian 2 for the local user only, which means that you don’t need administrator privileges for the installation.

If you have an older version of pip, first update pip itself:

# On Linux/MacOsX:
pip install -U pip

# On Windows
python -m pip install -U pip

If you don’t have pip but you have the easy_install utility, you can use it to install pip:

easy_install pip

If you have neither pip nor easy_install, use the approach described here to install pip: https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.htm

Installing optional requirements

The 3D plotting of morphologies (see Morphologies in 2D or 3D) depends on the mayavi package. Follow its installation instructions to install it.