How to install the development version of IPython Qtconsole and Notebook in Ubuntu

Both the awesome IPython notebook and Qtconsole are in the Ubuntu repositories, so if you just want to use the stable released versions, you can just do

sudo apt-get install ipython-notebook ipython-qtconsole

and be on your way. But the git development version has a lot of cool new features, and you may not want to wait for 0.13 to be released and make its way to the Ubuntu repos. But you may be thinking that to use those you will have to figure out all the dependencies yourself. Actually, it’s pretty easy:

# First install git, if you don't already have it
sudo apt-get install git
# Then, clone the IPython repo, if you haven't already.
git clone git://github.com/ipython/ipython.git
cd ipython
# Now just install IPython with apt, then uninstall it.  The dependencies will remain
sudo apt-get install ipython-notebook ipython-qtconsole
sudo apt-get remove ipython-notebook ipython -qtconsole ipython
# Now install the IPython git version in such a way that will keep up to date when you pull
sudo python setup.py develop

To update, just cd into that ipython directory and type git pull. That’s it. Now type ipython notebook or ipython qtconsole to get the magic.

EDIT: After you do this, apt-get will start bugging you every time that you use it that a bunch of packages are no longer needed. These are the ones that you do need for the qtconsole and the notebook, so you should not autoremove them as it says. Rather, set them as manually installed by copying the list of packages that it tells you about and sudo apt-get installing them.