Installation Issue Due to Lack of VTK

Question

Hello all,

I have managed to download and install FEniCS with ppa (version 2016.1.0) on my Ubuntu 16.04 OS.

I have tried running some of the demos and I have experienced the following vtk problem whenever I use the command "cmake ."

How should I proceed to address this inconvenience ? I tried installing the vtk library earlier but ended up in a huge pile of mess by deleting several key libraries...

The command I used to install vtk was:

sudo apt-get install python-vtk

Now, after wasting an hour re-installing the key libraries -- which require uninstalling th vtk package I earlier installed -- things went back to the usual error message. The message I get after the "cmake ." command is pasted below,

$ cmake . 
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 6.2.0
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 6.2.0
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc -- works
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Detecting C compile features
-- Detecting C compile features - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++ -- works
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Detecting CXX compile features
-- Detecting CXX compile features - done
-- The imported target "vtkRenderingPythonTkWidgets" references the file
   "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libvtkRenderingPythonTkWidgets.so"
but this file does not exist.  Possible reasons include:
* The file was deleted, renamed, or moved to another location.
* An install or uninstall procedure did not complete successfully.
* The installation package was faulty and contained
   "/usr/lib/cmake/vtk-6.2/VTKTargets.cmake"
but not all the files it references.

-- The imported target "vtk" references the file
   "/usr/bin/vtk"
but this file does not exist.  Possible reasons include:
* The file was deleted, renamed, or moved to another location.
* An install or uninstall procedure did not complete successfully.
* The installation package was faulty and contained
   "/usr/lib/cmake/vtk-6.2/VTKTargets.cmake"
but not all the files it references.

-- Configuring done
-- Generating done
-- Build files have been written to: /home/eds101/Courses_Fall16/AdvancedCourse_I/drafting

Suggestions please ?

Answer 1

Installing python-vtk will lead to conflicts because the FEniCS packages from the PPA uses VTK 6, while python-vtk is version 5. Installing python-vtk6 might fix the problem, however, the messages you see are just warnings and nothing to worry about.

Comments

Thanks.

I tried the command with -vtk6 and it states that I already have the latest vtk version installed on my OS. So I guess the warning messages are something not so important after all... I wish I could've resolved them, but I'll take a pass on them since they seem not to interfere in the actual procedure ...