Set Up Python and Libraries for AI

For Ubuntu

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$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install python3-pip
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential python3-dev
$ pip3 install numpy
$ pip3 install scipy
$ pip3 install matplotlib
$ pip3 install scikit-learn
$ pip3 install tensorflow-cpu==2.10.0
$ pip3 install pillow

For MacOS

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brew update
brew install python
xcode-select --install
pip3 install --upgrade pip
pip3 install numpy
pip3 install scipy
pip3 install matplotlib
pip3 install scikit-learn
pip3 install tensorflow-macos==2.12.0
pip3 install tensorflow-metal==1.0.0
pip3 install pillow

• For TensorFlow, specify version 2 to ensure that the proper version of the Keras library is included.

• Metal is Apple’s low-level, high-performance graphics and compute API that provides direct access to the GPU.

• The Pillow library is an image-processing library

• Matplotlib is for plotting.

Set Up a Virtual Environment

1. Install Python 3.10

Tensorflow for MacOS currently (8/26/2025) requires python 3.9 or 3.10, it won't work with newer versions

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brew install python@3.10

This will install Python 3.10 on your computer at a location like: /usr/local/bin/python3.10

2. Create a Virtual Environment

Navigate to your project directory or create one:

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mkdir Projects/pdl
cd Projects/pdl

Then create the virtual environment¹:

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/usr/local/bin/python3.10 -m venv

This creates a folder named venv containing the isolated Python environment.

3. Activate the Environment

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source venv/bin/activate

Your terminal prompt will change to show you're inside the virtual environment. Now any pip3 install commands will apply only to this project.

4. Install Your Packages

Install the dependencies for this project:

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pip3 install --upgrade pip
pip3 install numpy
pip3 install scipy
pip3 install matplotlib
pip3 install scikit-learn
pip3 install tensorflow-macos==2.12.0
pip3 install tensorflow-metal==1.0.0
pip3 install pillow

5. Deactivate When Done

To exit the virtual environment:

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deactivate

AI Programming lecture notes by Brian Bird, written in August 2025, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

MS Copilot GPT-4 was used to draft parts of these notes.