Installing MDSplus on Ubuntu 16.04 for python

I lost a remarkable amount of time trying to get MDSplus operating on my new install of Ubuntu 16.04, and I thought I would share what worked for me.  Of note, I only need the client side MDSplus functions for python.  I tested this operation on a completely completely clean/new install of Ubuntu 16.04. 

What worked for me

The instructions on MDSplus's website [1] are fairly accurate so please read those as well. 

Start by opening the following file with gedit using the terminal command:

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and copy/paste and save the following file at the bottom

deb http://www.mdsplus.org/dist/Ubuntu16/repo MDSplus stable

Next, enter the following commands

$ wget http://www.mdsplus.org/dist/mdsplus.gpg.key
$ sudo apt-key add mdsplus.gpg.key
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install mdsplus-python

It should now be installed.  To check the python MDSplus functions, open pythin with:

$ python

and then type:

>>> import MDSplus

Note the capitalization of MDSplus.  Assuming no error is thrown, your install is working. 

(Optional) Another way to check the install, you can type the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install python-pip
$ sudo easy_install mdsplus

and make sure that MDSplus is correctly installed. 

References

[1] http://www.mdsplus.org/index.php/Latest_Ubuntu/Debian_Packages