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Atmospheric Administration
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Downloading PyFerret and Ferret

Downloading PyFerret and Ferret

PyFerret is the preferred "Ferret" program. It is recommended for all Ferret users.  Classic Ferret is available as well but is not updated past Version 7.6.
 

Releases: For official releases, tar files with pre-built binaries, or the source code for the official releases, are available through the GitHub pages at

 

See the PyFerret Downloads page for PyFerret installation options.

Here is the Installation guide for Ferret.

 

FerretDatasets The distributed datasets may be downloaded or updated from GitHub. These datasets are used for creating land outlines and masks, and also used by example and tutorial scripts. Some of the data files within this collection are not absolutely required for Ferret installation. See the Installation and update guide for guidance.
 

 

Windows

For Windows 10, install the Windows Subsystem for Linux. The Windows Subsystem for Linux gives you a linux bash shell, and once that is running, use the Anaconda Installer for PyFerret from https://github.com/NOAA-PMEL/PyFerret/releases. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux  for a discussion, and  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 for more information on doing this. Then run the Anaconda Installer for PyFerret.

You will also want to install an X-windows app to give you command windows.  We have used Xming and VcXsrv as well as one or two commercial products, but there are a number of choices.  Install it into Windows, not within Windows Linux Subsystem. Add this one line to your $HOME/.bashrc

export DISPLAY=:0

and restart the Linux terminal.

 

For older Windows operating systems the option was to install Ferret under the (free) Virtual Box virtualization environment. Install Virtual Box and then install one of the available free and well supported Unix platforms such as Ubuntu. This gives you an environment where you can install and run a Ferret executable for Linux from the release tar files for Ferret/PyFerret. See the WINDOWS README file for more details.

 

Other operating systems: Cooperative Support

 

 

Up-to-date demonstrations and tutorials may be found on the Ferret Documentation page. The FAQ's also provide a useful resource.

If you have questions please see the Support page for the best ways to get help.

Once you are running Ferret, please join the FerretUsers' list where questions and comments about using Ferret are discussed; you will also receive information about updates and new releases.