No module named tkinter on amazon ec2 centOS

Question

I have a python code that has following imports:

from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

It internally calls tkinter. I am using Amazon EC2 server having CentOS on it. I cannot install tkinter, as OS is headless (no GUI). This link seems to be solution, but it is for Debian OS and does not work for CentOS.

I tried installing desktop referring this link, but that too doesn't work. It gives warning as "WARNING: group GNOME Desktop does not exists." when I ran command yum -y groups install "GNOME Desktop"

Answer 1

Assuming that you don't want a GUI at all, but let matplotlib produce images on your server, the following might help:

Using a backend without interactive elements should not require tkinter to be present at all.

From the documentation:

There are two types of backends: user interface backends [...] and hardcopy backends to make image files (PNG, SVG, PDF, PS; also referred to as “non-interactive backends”).

Two ways to set the backend (also taken from the link above):

1. The backend parameter in your matplotlibrc file (see Customizing matplotlib):

   backend : Agg  
   

2. Inside the script

   import matplotlib
   matplotlib.use('Agg')  
   

   If you use the use() function, this must be done before importing matplotlib.pyplot.

Possible non-interactive backends: