If this does not work on default system. Install virtualenv (maybe using pip). After that.:

virtualenv venv 
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r pip-requirements.txt

To go back to default shell:

deactivate

I will also need a set of utilities for reading file. I do the following:

git clone https://github.com/rbiswas4/basicio
cd basicio
python setup.py install --user

I also set the location of the DES directory using setup.sh. This should be modified to point DESData to the directory containing SVAIGOLD