Is this a good idea - upgrade python?

Darrell Michaud dmichaud at amergin.org
Mon Sep 15 16:28:23 EDT 2008


I've had excellent luck installing new versions of python alongside
whatever comes with the distribution. This insures nothing in the
distribution breaks, while giving you as a developer access to late
breaking features.

Redhat-esque distributions have a pattern of renaming the python
executable to python24, python25, etc.. and then symlinking one of them to
"python". You can follow this pattern if you wish or just use a completely
seperate installation try like /opt/python25

I haven't run into any library or directory collisions with this method,
just install to a unique directory of your choosing such as "python2.5.2",
then set your projects to use a PYTHONPATH environment variable to match
the python installation that you wish to develop with. Typically you can
set this via an IDE, shell scripts, makefiles, ant, or even manually.






Labitt, Bruce wrote:
> I'm thinking off blowing away my python2.4 from my distro and compiling
> Python 2.5.2 which is the latest stable version.  That way I can make
> sure what I have - and what options.  Even my setuptools is old and I
> cannot use easy_install on some stuff.  It is quite frustrating.  I'm
> having little success in getting some 3D python stuff to work.  Actually
> it almost works - but that isn't good enough.  I do get the image, it
> can rotate, pan and resize, I just can't save the image.  The code works
> on my crummy windoze laptop, but not on my 'more capable' linux box.
> Arggh.
>
> Is there a reason (or reasons) that this would be unadvisable?  I have
> Scientific Linux 5.2, which is a clone of RHEL 5.2.
>
> Or to open an old can of worms, am I much better off to go to a more
> bleeding edge distro?  I think I'm about ready for it.  Something about
> having access to the much more modern versions of nearly everything is
> becoming more appealing everyday.
>
> -Bruce
>
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