Urwid is packaged as python-urwid in Debian and Ubuntu. Use your favorite package manager or issue the following command as root:

apt-get install python-urwid

pip install urwid

Download and extract the Urwid tarball, then run the following commands in the urwid-X.Y.Z directory as root:

python setup.py install

SuSE users please note: SuSE Linux may not come with the curses library installed. You will need to install the ncurses and python-curses packages before you can use Urwid's curses_display module.

If you don't have root access or you don't want to do a system wide install, you can download and extract the Urwid tarball, then copy the inner urwid directory into the directory of each program that needs to use it.