> But I don't think that a "normal" Lunix user should ever have to involve > themselves directly with distutils or setuptools (it's OK to invoke them > from the installation routine, but not to require the user to unpack the > application then run setup.py).
I completely agree. It would be best if the Linux distribution provided packages for most of the stuff (in RPM or deb format as appropriate), and volunteers provided a repository of packages in a format that the native package management tool actually understands (rather than PyPI - although it might be useful to have PyPI provide a Debian package repository for all projects that upload .deb files) > I am afraid that distutils, and > setuptools, are not really the answer to the problem, since while they > may (as intended) guarantee that Python applications can be installed > uniformly across different platforms they also more or less guarantee > that Python applications are installed differently from all other > applications on the platform. Ah, so we are clearly in agreement here. > Mike Driscoll did some work providing Windows installers for various > Python packages and extension modules, and people were amused that he > provided executable installers for pure Python libraries. But I saw that > as a sensible decision, since it meant that Windows users (and even > Windows Python application developers) used the same mechanism to > install everything. The Windows story is indeed sad, as none of the Windows packaging formats provides support for dependencies (MSI has some support, but as far as I understand it, it's pretty useless). But yes, for Windows, you want .exe or .msi installers, not something proprietary. Regards, Martin _______________________________________________ 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
