PyNN with Neuron on Windows

[Sam V Adams]

Hi There,

I'm new to PyNN and Neuron and having trouble with installation on
windows. Following the install instructions on the PyNN Trac pages I
have managed to build and install Neuron 7.0 from source code under
cygwin. I think this has worked because running nrniv -python command
works (but I haven't tried to run anything in it). The bit where I
have the problem is installing Neuron as a Python package which I just
can't get to work. It falls over with lots of errors.

Can someone tell me if they have done this successfully (either on
Windows XP or Vista) ? If so I'd be grateful for some information on
how you did it.

Many Thanks
Sam

[Andrew Davison]

Hi,

> I'm new to PyNN and Neuron and having trouble with installation on
> windows. Following the install instructions on the PyNN Trac pages I
> have managed to build and install Neuron 7.0 from source code under
> cygwin. I think this has worked because running nrniv -python command
> works (but I haven't tried to run anything in it). The bit where I
> have the problem is installing Neuron as a Python package which I just
> can't get to work. It falls over with lots of errors.

It should not be necessary to install NEURON as a Python package -
PyNN should work fine using nrniv -python. Let me know if you have
problems with this.

> Can someone tell me if they have done this successfully (either on
> Windows XP or Vista) ? If so I'd be grateful for some information on
> how you did it.

There is much more in-depth information on installing NEURON on
Windows at the NEURON site:

http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/download

You could also post your question on the NEURON forum (http://
www.neuron.yale.edu/phpBB/) - you will probably find more
knowledgeable people about installing NEURON on Windows there. If this
doesn't help, post the error messages here and I'll take a look.

Best regards,

Andrew

[Sam V Adams]

>
> It should not be necessary to install NEURON as a Python package  -
> PyNN should work fine using nrniv -python. Let me know if you have
> problems with this.
>

Hi Andrew,

I tried this and after doing 'from pyNN.neuron import *' got

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "stdin", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named pyNN.neuron

Possibly it's a path issue (?) but I have set PYTHONPATH to include
the site-packages directory so it should be finding pyNN!

Also, should pyNN work with the standard windows install of Neuron?
I just noticed there was a nrngui_python link but trying the import in
that gives
me the same error.

Regards
Sam

[Andrew Davison]

> > It should not be necessary to install NEURON as a Python package  -
> > PyNN should work fine using nrniv -python. Let me know if you have
> > problems with this.
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> I tried this and after doing 'from pyNN.neuron import *' got
>
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "stdin", line 1, in <module>
> ImportError: No module named pyNN.neuron
>
> Possibly it's a path issue (?) but I have set PYTHONPATH to include
> the site-packages directory so it should be finding pyNN!

It definitely seems to be a path problem. Take a look at sys.path, and
check that the site-packages directory is in it. Maybe nrniv -python
isn't picking up the PYTHONPATH variable?

> Also, should pyNN work with the standard windows install of Neuron?
> I just noticed there was a nrngui_python link but trying the import in
> that gives
> me the same error.

I think so, but I think it installs its own version of Python, so it
might have its own site-packages directory.

Cheers,

Andrew