title: Installing SciPy on Linux Debian
body: <p>I'm a Linux n00b, and I want to install SciPy to help me on a homework asignment.</p>
  
  <p>This <a href="http://www.scipy.org/Installing_SciPy/Linux#head-d437bf93b9d428c6efeb08575f631ddf398374ea" rel="nofollow noreferrer">page</a> has confused me more than helped me. </p>
  
  <p>I have been guiding myself on the INSTALL.txt file I got from sourceforge, which says</p>
  
  <pre><code>PREREQUISITES
  =============
  
  SciPy requires the following software installed:
  
  1) Python__ 2.4.x or newer
  
     Debian packages: python python-dev
  
     Make sure that the Python package distutils is installed before
     continuing. For example, in Debian GNU/Linux, distutils is included
     in the python-dev package.
  
     Python must also be compiled with the zlib module enabled.
  
  __ http://www.python.org
  
  2) NumPy__ 1.2.0 or newer
  
     Debian package: python-numpy
  
  __ http://www.numpy.org/
  
  3) Complete LAPACK__ library (see NOTES 1, 2, 3)
  
     Debian/Ubuntu packages (g77): atlas3-base atlas3-base-dev
  
     Various SciPy packages do linear algebra computations using the LAPACK
     routines. SciPy's setup.py scripts can use number of different LAPACK
     library setups, including optimized LAPACK libraries such as ATLAS__ or
     the Accelerate/vecLib framework on OS X. The notes below give
     more information on how to prepare the build environment so that
     SciPy's setup.py scripts can use whatever LAPACK library setup one has.
  
  __ http://www.netlib.org/lapack/
  __ http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Via Synaptic Package Manager I downloaded all this + IPython. </p>
  
  <p>As I guess I'll get stuck in between you guys answering my first questions and finally getting this thing up and running, I'll update this single post various times.</p>
  
  <p>1st question:
  Guiding myself through <a href="http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman/scipy_course_01.html#on-unix-linux" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this link</a> I downloaded the sourceforge .tar file with scipy.</p>
  
  <p>I extracted its contents on /home/antonio/Desktop/Downloads</p>
  
  <p>I ran the commands that appear on the link:</p>
  
  <pre><code>jajaja:/home/antonio/Desktop/Downloads# cd scipy-?.?.?
  jajaja:/home/antonio/Desktop/Downloads/scipy-0.7.0# setup.py build
  bash: setup.py: command not found
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>^ WHY??</strong></p>
  
  <p>Why does it appear command not found? Should I extract the contents of the .tar file somewhere else?</p>