"Jesse Noller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Bill Janssen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> My understanding is that if there is a system Python, you shouldn't
> change it. Ever.
Huge, big, honkin' +1 from me on that. Besides, for a system Python,
you want your distribution to manage packages, not setuptools,
otherwise you confuse -- and probably break -- your system.
I find this discussion fascinating. I install new packages into my
system Python all the time, with "/usr/bin/python setup.py install",
and that includes setuptools. I've got PIL, ReportLab, Twisted, Xlib,
appscript, docutils, email-4.0.1, fuse, PyLucene, medusa, mutagen,
roman, setuptools, and SSL installed in the Leopard machine I'm
writing from. They don't wind up in
/System/Library/.../site-packages/, they wind up in
/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/, which is sort of the right place,
from an Apple point of view. I do this on lots of Macs -- I've got a
regular posse of them at work. And I've never had any problems with
it.
I agree that there are some things I'd be very wary of installing into
the system Python, like PyObjC, and Zope. Usually, I don't install
anything which appears to already be there.
Bill
Bill is correct - using /usr/bin/python does install packages to
/Library/... - this is sort of the right place because it still
installs it to a "system path", where it can side-effect other users,
but it is a "mostly correct" way for Apple framework installs.
/Library is system-wide, yes, but not system-reserved.
/System/Library/ is system-wide and system reserved.
Just like on most distros (LFS and some older distros excluded):
/usr/ is system-wide and system-reserved.
/usr/local/ is sytem-wide, but not system-reserved.
Computer admins are supposed to install into /Library/ or /usr/local/.
The only possible problem of installing new Python modules into /Library/ is
if any system Python scripts that depend on exact versions of libraries
shipped in /System/Library/, but were not crafted as to ignore /Library/.
That can be problematic, and arguablly a bug in the script, but Apple does
not tend to fix those bugs that quickly.
(OS bugs is one area where Apple's traditional secrecy is a bad thing. More
transparency in bug fixing can only be an improvement.)
_______________________________________________
Python-Dev mailing list
Python-Dev@python.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
Unsubscribe:
http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
