how to install lpsolve module for Python on Linux Ubuntu 10.04?

Question

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, and started learning python today.(I tried to install a pirate version of MATLAB but failed...) I have a linear programming problem to solve, and I want to use lp_solve module for Python. I tried for 1~2 hours to find the download file and install the module.

I am not sure if I downloaded a right thing, and I could not install it until now.

How can I install this? There is no download link in http://lpsolve.sourceforge.net/ , and it tells me to run a command

python setup.py install

but there is no setup.py file in anywhere, including the lpsolve source file I downloaded somewhere.

If you know where to download it, and install it, could you teach me how to do them, step by step?

I am not sure about the version of my Python.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Adding few more details to the answer provided by dnozay.

Download the following two files from http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpsolve/files/lpsolve/

• lp_solve_5.5.2.0_dev_ux64.tar.gz - contains the .so files
• lp_solve_5.5.2.0_Python2.5_exe_ux64.tar.gz - contains the python wrapper scripts for lpsolver, which helps to invoke the native library from .so files.

Unzip the above downloaded files, where each directory formed by unzip will have an lpsolve55.so file, though at different locations.

Specify the paths to lpsolve55.so file in each directory by setting the following two environment variables:

• export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/home/xxx/lp_solve_dev/
• export PYTHONPATH=/home/xxx/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages

To test if lpsolver is configured as expected :

[xx-xxxx@ip-xx-x-x-xx ~]$ python
>>>Python 2.7.9 (default, Apr  1 2015, 18:18:03)
[GCC 4.8.2 20140120 (Red Hat 4.8.2-16)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>from lpsolve55 import *
>>>lpsolve()
lpsolve  Python Interface version 5.5.0.9
using lpsolve version 5.5.2.0
Usage: ret = lpsolve('functionname', arg1, arg2, ...)

PS: make sure you have installed python-dev (if not, type sudo apt-get install python-dev at the command line) before you do this all.

Answer 2

The download link is:

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpsolve/ , or
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpsolve/files/lpsolve/ for the files tab.

Once you have it installed, you may need to tweak your PYTHONPATH .

You also may want to look into cvexp :

• http://pypi.python.org/pypi/cvexp