diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 7b5cb72e6..364644206 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ before_install:
     - 'if [[ $GROUP == js* ]]; then npm install -g casperjs; fi'
     - git clone --quiet --depth 1 https://github.com/minrk/travis-wheels travis-wheels
 install:
-    - pip install -f travis-wheels/wheelhouse -r requirements.txt file://$PWD#egg=notebook[test] coveralls
+    - pip install -f travis-wheels/wheelhouse --pre file://$PWD#egg=notebook[test] coveralls
 script:
     - 'if [[ $GROUP == js* ]]; then python -m notebook.jstest ${GROUP:3}; fi'
     - 'if [[ $GROUP == python ]]; then nosetests --with-coverage --cover-package=notebook notebook; fi'
diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 474f93550..74fa33454 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ ADD . /srv/notebook
 WORKDIR /srv/notebook/
 RUN chmod -R +rX /srv/notebook
 
-RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt -e .[test]
+RUN pip3 install -e .[test]
 
 # install kernels
 RUN python2 -m ipykernel.kernelspec
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 3bfdc4528..8208bfcee 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -4,10 +4,9 @@ The Jupyter HTML notebook is a web-based notebook environment for interactive co
 
 Dev quickstart:
 
-* Create a virtual env (ie jupyter-dev)
-* ensure that you have node/npm installed (ie brew install node on OS X)
+* ensure that you have node/npm installed (e.g. `brew install node` on OS X)
 * Clone this repo and cd into it
-* pip install -r requirements.txt -e .
+* `pip install --pre -e .`
 
 _NOTE_: For Debian/Ubuntu systems, if you're installing the system node you need
 to use the 'nodejs-legacy' package and not the 'node' package.
@@ -16,15 +15,15 @@ Launch with:
 
     jupyter notebook
 
-For Ubuntu Trusty:
+Example installation (tested on Ubuntu Trusty):
+
 ```
 sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy npm python-virtualenv python-dev
-python2 -m virtualenv ~/.virtualenvs/notebook
-source ~/.virtualenvs/notebook/bin/activate
+# ensure setuptools/pip are up-to-date
 pip install --upgrade setuptools pip
 git clone https://github.com/jupyter/notebook.git
 cd notebook
-pip install -r requirements.txt -e .
+pip install --pre -e .
 jupyter notebook
 ```
 
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 8f4074779..000000000
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,7 +0,0 @@
--e git+https://github.com/ipython/traitlets.git#egg=traitlets
--e git+https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter_core.git#egg=jupyter_core
--e git+https://github.com/jupyter/nbformat.git#egg=nbformat
--e git+https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter_client.git#egg=jupyter_client
--e git+https://github.com/ipython/ipython.git#egg=ipython
--e git+https://github.com/ipython/ipykernel.git#egg=ipykernel
--e git+https://github.com/jupyter/nbconvert.git#egg=nbconvert