Is this a good idea - upgrade python?

Ben Scott dragonhawk at gmail.com
Mon Sep 15 18:43:58 EDT 2008


On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Labitt, Bruce
<labittb1 at tycoelectronics.com> 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.

  I would recommend instead installing a newer version "along side"
the one installed by your distro, under /opt/python/ or
/usr/local/python/ or /usr/python-2.5/ or whatever.

  Package managers, more or less by definition, attempt to keep track
of files, packages, and dependencies.  If you start making changes to
things nominally controlled by the package manager, but without
"letting the package manager know", you can run into all sorts of
weird problems.  That then usually leads to people saying "package
managers suck" and hating computers.

> Or to open an old can of worms, am I much better off to go to a more
> bleeding edge distro?

  You do seem to be running into a *lot* of problems which would be
solved by upgrading to newer software, and by implication, a newer
distro.  What is it -- exactly -- that's keeping you on your current
distro/release?    I'd say the evidence is in favor of moving to
something newer, unless you have (1) a significant body of
self-compiled software that won't upgrade easily or (2) a program you
can't upgrade *and* also can't live without.  And given all the
trouble you seem to be having, the size of #1 would have to be very
large indeed to still matter.  :)

-- Ben


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