Ubuntu 14.04, Pip Cannot Upgrade Matplotllib

When I try to upgrade my matplotlib using pip, it outputs: Downloading/unpacking matplotlib from https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/m/matplotlib/matplotlib-1.4.0.tar.gz#md5=1d

Solution 1:

This is a known bug that has been fixed (https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/3414) on master.

The bug is in the handling of searching for a freetype installation. If you install the Linux package freetype-dev, you will avoid this bug and be able to compile matplotlib.

sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev

Solution 2:

On Ubuntu 14 server, you also need to install libxft-dev

sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev libxft-dev

Solution 3:

I had the same issues trying to install matplotlib on Python 3 using pip3, and it seems that this problem is related to a bare-bones installation of Python 3, and doing a:

sudo apt-get build-dep matplotlib

followed by

sudo pip3 install matplotlib 

is probably a better solution than selectively installing only the libraries related to matplotlib.

Solution 4:

Since mac doesn't have apt-get you, on OSX you may need to do:

brew install freetype

then you can run:

pip install matplotlib

Solution 5:

Found this page while looking answer for fedora 24.

RPM solution is:

dnf install freetype-devel