How to install pycairo on osx?

Question

I am trying to install the pycairo (Python bindings for the cairo graphics library) under OSX.

I started with

easy_install pycairo

Answer 1

Ok. I solved it. Putting solution here for future reference, it might help someone.

Basically, the whole ports/fink system is a bit messed up, and osx doesn't really play nice with the linux-y world.

So, the steps I needed to install pycairo on OSX were:

• download the latest source versions of pixman, cairo, pycairo

• extract everything. Then:

  cd PIXMAN_DIR ; ./configure ; make ; sudo make install 
  cd CAIRO_DIR ; cp PIXMAN_DIR/pixman/*.h . ; ./configure ; make ; sudo make install
  cd PYCAYRO_DIR; locate cairo.pc 
  

  hopefully, several locations are returned. choose the most likely one (one with newest cairo). For me it was "/opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/cairo.pc" and do:

  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/
  

  after this, still in PYCAIRO_DIR, do:

  python setup.py install
  

This should do it...