On 19/01/2012 5:36, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:10:43 -0800, alex23 wrote: > <snip> > > download the tar ball > extract the contents of the file > cd into the source directory > run ./configure > run make > optionally run make test > run sudo make altinstall > > As a total n00b who'd never used make before, it took me 25 minutes > effort on my first attempt, including reading the entire README file > (twice!). Now I have the whole process down to about 30 seconds effort, > and six minutes elapsed time, on my laptop. > <snip>
My first attempt to compile it on Debian took some extra steps, as Python didn't find the ncurses and and readline libs. But it was still easy to figure out how to build and install (locally) all the necessary packages. I leave the system installed python alone, and install the python version I built in $HOME/usr/local so I can later use this in a virtualenv. These are part of my notes from a while back so version might not be up to date anymore. 1. Compile zlib tar xzvf zlib-1.2.5.tar.gz cd zlib-1.2.5 ./configure --64 --prefix=$HOME/usr/local make make install 2. Compile readline tar xzvf readline-6.1.tar.gz ./configure --enable-shared --prefix=$HOME/usr/local make make install 3. Compile ncurses tar xzvf ncurses-5.7 ./configure --with-shared --enable-termcap --prefix=$HOME/usr/local make make install 4. Install Python from source tar xzvf Python-2.7.2.gz cd Python-2.7.2 export LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/usr/local" ./configure --enable-shared --prefix=$HOME/usr/local make make install If i need to install a new version of Python, as I happen to have done today, I only need to do step 4. Which is maybe 5 minutes of work. Cheers, Benedict -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
