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• Matplotlib version, Python version and Platform (Windows, OSX, Linux ...)

1.5.2rc2, python 2.7.11 and python 3.5.1, Fedora rawhide.

• How did you install Matplotlib and Python (pip, anaconda, from source ...)

From source, I'm building a new version of the Fedora package.

• If possible please supply a Short, Self Contained, Correct, Example
  that demonstrates the issue i.e a small piece of code which reproduces the issue
  and can be run with out any other (or as few as possible) external dependencies.

In Fedora, we're patching the lib/matplotlib/__init__.py to use /usr/share/matplotlib/mpl-data as the path for data files. cbook.py seems to have its own reimplementation of the data files path code, so the path needs to be patched in two locations. It would be nice if we could specify the desired data files location path at build time, by the way. Shall I open a separate issue for that?

Trivial patch:

--- a/lib/matplotlib/cbook.py   2016-05-20 14:14:52.000000000 +0200
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/cbook.py   2016-05-20 19:28:57.373601582 +0200
@@ -823,8 +823,7 @@ def get_sample_data(fname, asfileobj=Tru
     if matplotlib.rcParams['examples.directory']:
         root = matplotlib.rcParams['examples.directory']
     else:
-        root = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__),
-                            "mpl-data", "sample_data")
+        root = os.path.join(matplotlib._get_data_path(), 'sample_data')
     path = os.path.join(root, fname)

     if asfileobj: