Obtain source code from ​http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/

For ASAP 2.1 you need at version >= 0.87

Newer versions of matplotlib require "numpy" version 0.9.8 (Not >= 1.0). This is available from ​http://www.numpy.org Make sure you get version 0.9.8. To install numpy

  cd /some/dir
  tar zxvf ~/numpy-0.9.8.tar.gz
  cd numpy-0.9.8  
  python setup.py build
  sudo python setup.py install

To install matplotlib

  
  cd /some/dir
  tar zxvf ~/matplotlib-0.87.4.tar.gz
  cd matplotlib-0.87.4

ASAP currently only uses the tk backend. It is recommends that you only compile in support for tk (unless you know what you are doing and want the other backends). Edit setup.py and set the following variables

  BUILD_AGG          = 1
  BUILD_GTKAGG       = 0
  BUILD_GTK          = 0

  BUILD_WXAGG        = 0

Then all you have to do is

  python setup.py build
  sudo python setup.py install

Note that if you do not have sudo configured you instead would

  su 
  python setup.py install

Please refer to the o/s notes for suggested packages which need to be installed to compile matplotlib