Notes on XGBoost
[python machine-learning wwe So you’re trying to install XGBoost?
It is not as simple as “sudo pip install xgboost,” which gave me an error about a python egg!
Advice on the internet said:
# 1. Upgrade Pip
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install xgboost # ERROR
# 2. Upgrade Pip 2x
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install xgboost # didn't work
# 3. Upgrade setuptools
pip install --upgrade setuptools
pip install xgboost # didn't work
# 4. Upgrade ez_setup
pip install --upgrade ez_setup
pip install xgboost # didn't work
# 5. Use upgraded ez_setup to upgrade setuptools
easy_install -U setuptools
pip install xgboost # didn't work
# 6. Make sure gcc is up-to-date
brew install gcc --without-multilib # Was already up-to-date
pip install xgboost # didn't work
# 7. Try using conda...?
conda install xgboost
#...package not found...
# 8. Clone xgboost from GitHub and build
git clone https://github.com/dmlc/xgboost
cd xgboost
./build.sh
# Failed... Errors
sudo ./build.sh
# Failed... Errors
# 9. Use make inside xgboost directory?
make # Fail!
# 10. Ah, use this [other command](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32838959/python-xgboost-on-mac-install) inside xgboost directory
cp make/minimum.mk ./config.mk; make -j4 # NOPE.
At one point, it was Time to Read the Docs
Ah, the “git clone” advice was good, but old. Nowadays, one must use the recursive flag.
git clone --recursive https://github.com/dmlc/xgboost
cd xgboost; cp make/minimum.mk ./config.mk; make -j4
# Fail...... errorerror: error: errorunsupported option '-fopenmp'
Ok… wtf is openmp anyway?
It’s true: to Configure OpenMP on a Mac one needs an up-to-date gcc. However, what I didn’t do before was reinstall gcc:
brew reinstall gcc --without-multilib
According to the tutorial, I should now be able to compile programs w/ OpenMP support like so:
gcc-6 -fopenmp # gcc-7 on my system
Importantly, my hope is that my computer will not give an error saying the fopenmp flag is not an supported option.
cp make/config.mk ./config.mk; make -j4
# Drum roll.........
# Nope :-(
The following note on the Docs page was key:
“NOTE: If you use OSX El Capitan, brew installs gcc the latest version gcc-6. So you may need to modify Makefile#L46 and change gcc-5 to gcc-6. After that change gcc-5/g++-5 to gcc-6/g++-6 in make/config.mk then build using the following commands”
No matter what “which gcc” kept pointing to the non-brewed version in /usr/bin. That’s b/c HomeBrew purposely names its gcc’s w/ the leading version number to avoid confusion (e.g., gcc-7). However, I vimmed into the config.mk file and saw that, by default, it used the system gcc. I had to set gcc and g++ to gcc-7 and g++-7, respectively.
vim make/config.mk
# look for commented out section out top ("choice of compile")
# 1. uncomment "export CC = gcc" and change gcc to gcc-7
# 2. uncomment "export CXX = g++" and change g++ to g++-7
Then magic happened! No errors. Things happened. It built!
The next step on the Docs page was to install the Python library:
cd python-package
sudo python setup.py install
That worked too! :-)
You might have to make a PYTHONPATH environment variable to export in your .bash_profile… But I didn’t have to… So not sure.
Btw, one might also wonder: wtf is MPI?
See the same tutorial if you want to install MPI…
brew install openmpi --build-from-source --cc=gcc-6
Some References
- Read the Docs: XGBoost
- Machine Learning Mastery: XGBoost Python Mini Course
- Machine Learning Mastery: Gentle Introduction to XGBoost