Hello,
On a different note, I needed to do a fresh install of firedrake and most seemed to go well but when I try and update to include slepc, I get the following error.  
Can anyone say if there is something badly set up on my end?
Francis
Installing SLEPc.
Updating the git repository for slepc
No need to rebuild SLEPc
Installing slepc4py.
Cloning slepc4py
Failed to clone slepc4py using ssh, falling back to https.
Successfully cloned repository slepc4py.
Checking out branch firedrake
Successfully checked out branch firedrake
Installing slepc4py/
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "../bin/firedrake-update", line 1180, in <module>
    build_and_install_slepc()
  File "../bin/firedrake-update", line 800, in build_and_install_slepc
    install("slepc4py/")
  File "../bin/firedrake-update", line 559, in install
    run_pip_install(["--ignore-installed", package])
  File "../bin/firedrake-update", line 529, in run_pip_install
    check_call(pipinstall + pipargs)
  File "../bin/firedrake-update", line 366, in check_call
    log.debug(subprocess.check_output(arguments, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, env=env).decode())
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/subprocess.py", line 336, in check_output
    **kwargs).stdout
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/subprocess.py", line 418, in run
    output=stdout, stderr=stderr)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['/home/fpoulin/software/firedrake/bin/python', '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--no-binary', 'mpi4py', '--no-deps', '-vvv', '--ignore-installed', 'slepc4py/']' returned non-zero exit status 1.
------------------
Francis Poulin  
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies                   
Professor
Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Waterloo
email:           fpoulin@uwaterloo.ca
Web:            https://uwaterloo.ca/poulin-research-group/
Telephone:  +1 519 888 4567 x32637