# Error with compiler when running first example code

**URL:** https://fenicsproject.discourse.group/t/error-with-compiler-when-running-first-example-code/408
**Category:** installation
**Created:** [March 21, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://fenicsproject.discourse.group/t/error-with-compiler-when-running-first-example-code/408 "2019-03-21T14:51:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![ncowley](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fenicsproject.discourse.group/ncowley/32/96_2.png) [@ncowley](https://fenicsproject.discourse.group/u/ncowley)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://fenicsproject.discourse.group/t/error-with-compiler-when-running-first-example-code/408/1 "2019-03-21T14:51:19Z")

</div>

I’ve just tried to install FEniCS on Ubuntu 16.04 and when I try to run the first example code using python3.5 I get the following 2 errors:

> RuntimeError: Expecting a string or list of strings, not {‘slepc\_real’, ‘sz’, ‘mpi’, ‘mpi\_cxx’, ‘hdf5’, ‘boost\_timer’, ‘m’, ‘boost\_filesystem’, ‘z’, ‘dolfin’, ‘petsc\_real’, ‘dl’}.
> 
> RuntimeError: Unable to compile C++ code with dijitso

 ![fenics_error](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/fenicsproject1/original/1X/6769af90f22a56d47ace3fe37f787724dce40682.png)

I installed by building from source, when I used the ppa for ubuntu I got an import error that no module called ‘fenics’ could be found.

Has anyone encountered or solved this problem?